Genesis 45:16-28

Living Bible

¹⁶ The news soon reached Pharaoh—“Joseph’s brothers have come”; and Pharaoh was very happy to hear it, as were his officials.

¹⁷ Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Tell your brothers to load their pack animals and return quickly to their homes in Canaan, ¹⁸ and to bring your father and all of your families and come here to Egypt to live. Tell them, ‘Pharaoh will assign to you the very best territory in the land of Egypt. You shall live off the fat of the land!’ ¹⁹ And tell your brothers to take wagons from Egypt to carry their wives and little ones, and to bring your father here. ²⁰ Don’t worry about your property, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.”

²¹ So Joseph gave them wagons, as Pharaoh had commanded, and provisions for the journey, ²² and he gave each of them new clothes—but to Benjamin he gave five changes of clothes and three hundred pieces of silver! ²³ He sent his father ten donkey-loads of the good things of Egypt, and ten donkeys loaded with grain and all kinds of other food, to eat on his journey. ²⁴ So he sent his brothers off.

“Don’t quarrel along the way!” was his parting shot! ²⁵ And leaving, they returned to the land of Canaan, to Jacob their father.

²⁶ “Joseph is alive,” they shouted to him. “And he is ruler over all the land of Egypt!” But Jacob’s heart was like a stone; he couldn’t take it in. ²⁷ But when they had given him Joseph’s messages, and when he saw the wagons filled with food that Joseph had sent him, his spirit revived.

²⁸ And he said, “It must be true! Joseph my son is alive! I will go and see him before I die.”