⁷ They said to him, “Why does my lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants that they should do such a thing!

¹⁶ He went over to her at the roadside and said, “Come, let me come in to you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?” ¹⁷ He answered, “I will send you a kid from the flock.” And she said, “Only if you give me a pledge until you send it.”^{(A) 18} He said, “What pledge shall I give you?” She replied, “Your signet and your cord and the staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her and went in to her, and she conceived by him.^(B)

¹⁸ Pray for us; we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things.^(A)

A Disillusioned View of Life

¹³ Hazael said, “What is your servant, who is a mere dog, that he should do this great thing?” Elisha answered, “The Lord has shown me that you are to be king over Aram.”^(A)

²⁰ Joab answered, “Far be it from me, far be it, that I should swallow up or destroy!

²² “The Lord, God of gods! The Lord, God of gods! He knows, and let Israel itself know! If it was in rebellion or in breach of faith toward the Lord, do not spare us today^{(A) 23} for building an altar to turn away from following the Lord, or if we did so to offer burnt offerings or grain offerings or offerings of well-being on it, may the Lord himself take vengeance.^{(B) 24} No! We did it from fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, ‘What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? ²⁵ For the Lord has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you, you Reubenites and Gadites; you have no portion in the Lord.’ So your children might make our children cease to worship the Lord. ²⁶ Therefore we said, ‘Let us now build an altar, not for burnt offering nor for sacrifice, ²⁷ but to be a witness between us and you and between the generations after us, that we do perform the service of the Lord in his presence with our burnt offerings and sacrifices and offerings of well-being, so that your children may never say to our children in time to come, “You have no portion in the Lord.” ’^{(C) 28} And we thought, ‘If this should be said to us or to our descendants in time to come, we could say, “Look at this copy of the altar of the Lord that our ancestors made, not for burnt offerings nor for sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you.” ²⁹ Far be it from us that we should rebel against the Lord and turn away this day from following the Lord by building an altar for burnt offering, grain offering, or sacrifice other than the altar of the Lord our God that stands before his tabernacle!’ ”^(D)

¹⁸ They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them they conspired to kill him.^{(A) 19} They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. ²⁰ Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” ²¹ But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.”^{(B) 22} Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father. ²³ So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the ornamented robe^[a] that he wore, ²⁴ and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

²⁵ Then they sat down to eat, and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt.^{(C) 26} Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?^{(D) 27} Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers agreed.^{(E) 28} When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.^(F)

²⁹ When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes.^{(G) 30} He returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is gone, and I, where can I turn?”^{(H) 31} Then they took Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood.^{(I) 32} They had the ornamented robe^[b] taken to their father, and they said, “This we have found; see now whether it is your son’s robe or not.”