Genesis 47:18-26

New International Version

¹⁸ When that year was over, they came to him the following year and said, “We cannot hide from our lord the fact that since our money is gone^(A) and our livestock belongs to you,^(B) there is nothing left for our lord except our bodies and our land. ¹⁹ Why should we perish before your eyes^(C)—we and our land as well? Buy us and our land in exchange for food,^(D) and we with our land will be in bondage to Pharaoh.^(E) Give us seed so that we may live and not die,^(F) and that the land may not become desolate.”

²⁰ So Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields, because the famine was too severe^(G) for them. The land became Pharaoh’s, ²¹ and Joseph reduced the people to servitude,^[a](H) from one end of Egypt to the other. ²² However, he did not buy the land of the priests,^(I) because they received a regular allotment from Pharaoh and had food enough from the allotment^(J) Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land.

²³ Joseph said to the people, “Now that I have bought you and your land today for Pharaoh, here is seed^(K) for you so you can plant the ground.^{(L) 24} But when the crop comes in, give a fifth^(M) of it to Pharaoh. The other four-fifths you may keep as seed for the fields and as food for yourselves and your households and your children.”

²⁵ “You have saved our lives,” they said. “May we find favor in the eyes of our lord;^(N) we will be in bondage to Pharaoh.”^(O)

²⁶ So Joseph established it as a law concerning land in Egypt—still in force today—that a fifth^(P) of the produce belongs to Pharaoh. It was only the land of the priests that did not become Pharaoh’s.^(Q)