³ There were also those who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.”

Kindness for Poor Brothers

³⁵ “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, ^(A)you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. ^36 (B)Take no interest from him or profit, but ^(C)fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. ^37 (D)You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. ^38 (E)I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

^39 (F)“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave:

⁸ Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. ^(A)But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ ^(B)In your tithes and contributions. ^9 (C)You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. ^10 (D)Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby ^(E)put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open ^(F)the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. ¹¹ I will rebuke ^(G)the devourer^[a] for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts.

⁷ “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, ^(A)you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother,

¹⁵ And when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us food. ^(A)Why should we die before your eyes? For our money is gone.” ¹⁶ And Joseph answered, “Give your livestock, and I will give you food in exchange for your livestock, if your money is gone.” ¹⁷ So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds, and the donkeys. He supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year. ¹⁸ And when that year was ended, they came to him the following year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord that our money is all spent. The herds of livestock are my lord's. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our land. ¹⁹ Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? ^(B)Buy us and our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh. And give us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.”

²⁰ So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for all the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe on them. The land became Pharaoh's. ²¹ As for the people, he made servants of them^[a] from one end of Egypt to the other. ^22 (C)Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh and lived on the allowance that Pharaoh gave them; therefore they did not sell their land.

²³ Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold, I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Now here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land. ²⁴ And at the harvests you shall give a ^(D)fifth to Pharaoh, and four fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field and as food for yourselves and your households, and as food for your little ones.” ²⁵ And they said, “You have saved our lives; ^(E)may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh.”