Old/New Testament
46 So Israel set out with all his possessions, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices there to the God of his father, Isaac. 2 During the night God spoke to him in a vision.
“Jacob! Jacob!” he called.
“Yes?” Jacob answered.
3-4 “I am God,” the voice replied, “the God of your father. Don’t be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will see to it that you become a great nation there. And I will go down with you into Egypt and I will bring your descendants back again; but you shall die in Egypt with Joseph at your side.”
5 So Jacob left Beer-sheba, and his sons brought him to Egypt, along with their little ones and their wives, in the wagons Pharaoh had provided for them. 6 They brought their livestock, too, and all their belongings accumulated in the land of Canaan, and came to Egypt—Jacob and all his children, 7 sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters—all his loved ones.
8-14 Here are the names of his sons and grandchildren who went with him into Egypt:
Reuben, his oldest son;
Reuben’s sons: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.
Simeon and his sons: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul (Shaul’s mother was a girl from Canaan).
Levi and his sons: Gershon, Kohath, Merari.
Judah and his sons: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, Zerah (however, Er and Onan died while still in Canaan, before Israel went to Egypt).
The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.
Issachar and his sons: Tola, Puvah, Iob, Shimron.
Zebulun and his sons: Sered, Elon, Jahleel.
15 So these descendants of Jacob and Leah, not including their daughter Dinah, born to Jacob in Paddan-aram, were thirty-three in all.
16-17 Also accompanying him were:
Gad and his sons: Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli.
Asher and his sons: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, and a sister, Serah.
Beriah’s sons were Heber and Malchiel.
18 These sixteen persons were the sons of Jacob and Zilpah, the slave girl given to Leah by her father, Laban.
19-22 Also in the total of Jacob’s household were these fourteen sons and descendants of Jacob and Rachel:
Joseph and Benjamin;
Joseph’s sons, born in the land of Egypt, were Manasseh and Ephraim (their mother was Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis);
Benjamin’s sons: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard.
23-25 Also in the group were these seven sons and descendants of Jacob and Bilhah, the slave girl given to Rachel by her father, Laban:
Dan and his son: Hushim.
Naphtali and his sons: Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem.
26 So the total number of those going to Egypt, of his own descendants, not counting the wives of Jacob’s sons, was sixty-six. 27 With Joseph and his two sons included, the total number of people in Jacob’s household there in Egypt was seventy.
28 Jacob sent Judah on ahead to tell Joseph that they were on the way, and would soon arrive in Goshen—which they did. 29 Joseph jumped into his chariot and journeyed to Goshen to meet his father and they fell into each other’s arms and wept a long while.
30 Then Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, for I have seen you again and know you are alive.”
31 And Joseph said to his brothers and to all their households, “I’ll go and tell Pharaoh that you are here, and that you have come from the land of Canaan to join me. 32 And I will tell him, ‘These men are shepherds. They have brought with them their flocks and herds and everything they own.’ 33 So when Pharaoh calls for you and asks you about your occupation, 34 tell him, ‘We have been shepherds from our youth, as our fathers have been for many generations.’ When you tell him this, he will let you live here in the land of Goshen.” For shepherds were despised and hated in other parts of Egypt.
47 Upon their arrival, Joseph went in to see Pharaoh.
“My father and my brothers are here from Canaan,” he reported, “with all their flocks and herds and possessions. They wish to settle in the land of Goshen.”
2 He took five of his brothers with him, and presented them to Pharaoh.
3 Pharaoh asked them, “What is your occupation?”
And they replied, “We are shepherds like our ancestors. 4 We have come to live here in Egypt, for there is no pasture for our flocks in Canaan—the famine is very bitter there. We request permission to live in the land of Goshen.”
5-6 And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Choose anywhere you like for them to live. Give them the best land of Egypt. The land of Goshen will be fine. And if any of them are capable, put them in charge of my flocks, too.”
7 Then Joseph brought his father Jacob to Pharaoh. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh.
8 “How old are you?” Pharaoh asked him.
9 Jacob replied, “I have lived 130 long, hard years, and I am not nearly as old as many of my ancestors.” 10 Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh again before he left.
11 So Joseph assigned the best land of Egypt—the land of Rameses—to his father and brothers, just as Pharaoh had commanded. 12 And Joseph furnished food to them in accordance with the number of their dependents.
13 The famine became worse and worse, so that all the land of Egypt and Canaan was starving. 14 Joseph collected all the money in Egypt and Canaan in exchange for grain, and he brought the money to Pharaoh’s treasure-houses. 15 When the people were out of money, they came to Joseph crying again for food.
“Our money is gone,” they said, “but give us bread; for why should we die?”
16 “Well then,” Joseph replied, “give me your livestock. I will trade you food in exchange.”
17 So they brought their cattle to Joseph in exchange for food. Soon all the horses, flocks, herds, and donkeys of Egypt were in Pharaoh’s possession.
18 The next year they came again and said, “Our money is gone, and our cattle are yours, and there is nothing left but our bodies and land. 19 Why should we die? Buy us and our land and we will be serfs to Pharaoh. We will trade ourselves for food, then we will live, and the land won’t be abandoned.”
20 So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; all the Egyptians sold him their fields because the famine was so severe. And the land became Pharaoh’s. 21 Thus all the people of Egypt became Pharaoh’s serfs. 22 The only land he didn’t buy was that belonging to the priests, for they were assigned food from Pharaoh and didn’t need to sell.
23 Then Joseph said to the people, “See, I have bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Here is grain. Go and sow the land. 24 And when you harvest it, a fifth of everything you get belongs to Pharaoh. Keep four parts for yourselves to be used for next year’s seed, and as food for yourselves and for your households and little ones.”
25 “You have saved our lives,” they said. “We will gladly be the serfs of Pharaoh.”
26 So Joseph made it a law throughout the land of Egypt—and it is still the law—that Pharaoh should have as his tax 20 percent of all the crops except those produced on the land owned by the temples.
27 So Israel lived in the land of Goshen in Egypt, and soon the people of Israel began to prosper, and there was a veritable population explosion among them. 28 Jacob lived seventeen years after his arrival, so that he was 147 years old at the time of his death. 29 As the time drew near for him to die, he called for his son Joseph and said to him, “Swear to me most solemnly that you will honor this, my last request: do not bury me in Egypt. 30 But when I am dead, take me out of Egypt and bury me beside my ancestors.” And Joseph promised. 31 “Swear that you will do it,” Jacob insisted. And Joseph did. Soon afterwards Jacob took to his bed.
48 One day not long after this, word came to Joseph that his father was failing rapidly. So, taking with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, he went to visit him. 2 When Jacob heard that Joseph had arrived, he gathered his strength and sat up in the bed to greet him, 3 and said to him,
“God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, 4 and said to me, ‘I will make you a great nation and I will give this land of Canaan to you and to your children’s children, for an everlasting possession.’ 5 And now, as to these two sons of yours, Ephraim and Manasseh, born here in the land of Egypt before I arrived, I am adopting them as my own, and they will inherit from me just as Reuben and Simeon will. 6 But any other children born to you shall be your own, and shall inherit Ephraim’s and Manasseh’s portion from you. 7 For your mother, Rachel, died after only two children[a] when I came from Paddan-aram, as we were just a short distance from Ephrath, and I buried her beside the road to Bethlehem.” 8 Then Israel looked over at the two boys. “Are these the ones?” he asked.
9 “Yes,” Joseph told him, “these are my sons whom God has given me here in Egypt.”
And Israel said, “Bring them over to me and I will bless them.”
10 Israel was half blind with age, so that he could hardly see. So Joseph brought the boys close to him and he kissed and embraced them.
11 And Israel said to Joseph, “I never thought that I would see you again, but now God has let me see your children too.”
12-13 Joseph took the boys by the hand, bowed deeply to him, and led the boys to their grandfather’s knees—Ephraim at Israel’s left hand and Manasseh at his right. 14 But Israel crossed his arms as he stretched them out to lay his hands upon the boys’ heads, so that his right hand was upon the head of Ephraim, the younger boy, and his left hand was upon the head of Manasseh, the older. He did this purposely.
15 Then he blessed Joseph with this blessing: “May God, the God of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, the God who has shepherded me all my life, wonderfully bless these boys. 16 He is the Angel who has kept me from all harm. May these boys be an honor to my name and to the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and may they become a mighty nation.”
17 But Joseph was upset and displeased when he saw that his father had laid his right hand on Ephraim’s head; so he lifted it to place it on Manasseh’s head instead.
18 “No, Father,” he said. “You’ve got your right hand on the wrong head! This one over here is the older. Put your right hand on him!”
19 But his father refused. “I know what I’m doing, my son,” he said. “Manasseh too shall become a great nation, but his younger brother shall become even greater.”
20 So Jacob blessed the boys that day with this blessing: “May the people of Israel bless each other by saying, ‘God make you as prosperous as Ephraim and Manasseh.’” (Note that he put Ephraim before Manasseh.)
21 Then Israel said to Joseph, “I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you again to Canaan, the land of your fathers. 22 And I have given the choice land of Shekem to you instead of to your brothers, as your portion of that land which I took from the Amorites with my sword and with my bow.”
13 Later that same day, Jesus left the house and went down to the shore, 2-3 where an immense crowd soon gathered. He got into a boat and taught from it while the people listened on the beach. He used many illustrations such as this one in his sermon:
“A farmer was sowing grain in his fields. 4 As he scattered the seed across the ground, some fell beside a path, and the birds came and ate it. 5 And some fell on rocky soil where there was little depth of earth; the plants sprang up quickly enough in the shallow soil, 6 but the hot sun soon scorched them and they withered and died, for they had so little root. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns choked out the tender blades. 8 But some fell on good soil and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as he had planted. 9 If you have ears, listen!”
10 His disciples came and asked him, “Why do you always use these hard-to-understand illustrations?”[a]
11 Then he explained to them that only they were permitted to understand about the Kingdom of Heaven, and others were not.
12-13 “For to him who has will more be given,” he told them, “and he will have great plenty; but from him who has not, even the little he has will be taken away. That is why I use these illustrations, so people will hear and see but not understand.[b]
14 “This fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah:
‘They hear, but don’t understand; they look, but don’t see! 15 For their hearts are fat and heavy, and their ears are dull, and they have closed their eyes in sleep, 16 so they won’t see and hear and understand and turn to God again, and let me heal them.’
But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear. 17 Many a prophet and godly man has longed to see what you have seen and hear what you have heard, but couldn’t.
18 “Now here is the explanation of the story I told about the farmer planting grain: 19 The hard path where some of the seeds fell represents the heart of a person who hears the Good News about the Kingdom and doesn’t understand it; then Satan[c] comes and snatches away the seeds from his heart. 20 The shallow, rocky soil represents the heart of a man who hears the message and receives it with real joy, 21 but he doesn’t have much depth in his life, and the seeds don’t root very deeply, and after a while when trouble comes, or persecution begins because of his beliefs, his enthusiasm fades, and he drops out. 22 The ground covered with thistles represents a man who hears the message, but the cares of this life and his longing for money choke out God’s Word, and he does less and less for God. 23 The good ground represents the heart of a man who listens to the message and understands it and goes out and brings thirty, sixty, or even a hundred others into the Kingdom.”[d]
24 Here is another illustration Jesus used: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer sowing good seed in his field; 25 but one night as he slept, his enemy came and sowed thistles among the wheat. 26 When the crop began to grow, the thistles grew too.
27 “The farmer’s men came and told him, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that choice seed is full of thistles!’
28 “‘An enemy has done it,’ he exclaimed.
“‘Shall we pull out the thistles?’ they asked.
29 “‘No,’ he replied. ‘You’ll hurt the wheat if you do. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and I will tell the reapers to sort out the thistles and burn them, and put the wheat in the barn.’”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.