Joseph Interprets the King's Dreams

¹After two years had passed, the king of Egypt dreamed that he was standing by the Nile River,

²when seven cows, fat and sleek, came up out of the river and began to feed on the grass.

³Then seven other cows came up; they were thin and bony. They came and stood by the other cows on the riverbank,

⁴and the thin cows ate up the fat cows. Then the king woke up.

⁵He fell asleep again and had another dream. Seven heads of grain, full and ripe, were growing on one stalk.

⁶Then seven other heads of grain sprouted, thin and scorched by the desert wind,

⁷and the thin heads of grain swallowed the full ones. The king woke up and realized that he had been dreaming.

⁸In the morning he was worried, so he sent for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. He told them his dreams, but no one could explain them to him.

⁹Then the wine steward said to the king, “I must confess today that I have done wrong.

¹⁰You were angry with the chief baker and me, and you put us in prison in the house of the captain of the guard.

¹¹One night each of us had a dream, and the dreams had different meanings.

¹²A young Hebrew was there with us, a slave of the captain of the guard. We told him our dreams, and he interpreted them for us.

¹³Things turned out just as he said: you restored me to my position, but you executed the baker.”

¹⁴The king sent for Joseph, and he was immediately brought from the prison. After he had shaved and changed his clothes, he came into the king's presence.

¹⁵The king said to him, “I have had a dream, and no one can explain it. I have been told that you can interpret dreams.”

¹⁶Joseph answered, “I cannot, Your Majesty, but God will give a favorable interpretation.”

¹⁷The king said, “I dreamed that I was standing on the bank of the Nile,

¹⁸when seven cows, fat and sleek, came up out of the river and began feeding on the grass.

¹⁹Then seven other cows came up which were thin and bony. They were the poorest cows I have ever seen anywhere in Egypt.

²⁰The thin cows ate up the fat ones,

²¹but no one would have known it, because they looked just as bad as before. Then I woke up.

²²I also dreamed that I saw seven heads of grain which were full and ripe, growing on one stalk.

²³Then seven heads of grain sprouted, thin and scorched by the desert wind,

²⁴and the thin heads of grain swallowed the full ones. I told the dreams to the magicians, but none of them could explain them to me.”

²⁵Joseph said to the king, “The two dreams mean the same thing; God has told you what he is going to do.

²⁶The seven fat cows are seven years, and the seven full heads of grain are also seven years; they have the same meaning.

²⁷The seven thin cows which came up later and the seven thin heads of grain scorched by the desert wind are seven years of famine.

²⁸It is just as I told you—God has shown you what he is going to do.

²⁹There will be seven years of great plenty in all the land of Egypt.

³⁰After that, there will be seven years of famine, and all the good years will be forgotten, because the famine will ruin the country.

³¹The time of plenty will be entirely forgotten, because the famine which follows will be so terrible.

³²The repetition of your dream means that the matter is fixed by God and that he will make it happen in the near future.

³³“Now you should choose some man with wisdom and insight and put him in charge of the country.

³⁴You must also appoint other officials and take a fifth of the crops during the seven years of plenty.

³⁵Order them to collect all the food during the good years that are coming, and give them authority to store up grain in the cities and guard it.

³⁶The food will be a reserve supply for the country during the seven years of famine which are going to come on Egypt. In this way the people will not starve.”

Joseph Is Made Governor over Egypt

³⁷The king and his officials approved this plan,

³⁸and he said to them, “We will never find a better man than Joseph, a man who has God's spirit in him.”

³⁹The king said to Joseph, “God has shown you all this, so it is obvious that you have greater wisdom and insight than anyone else.

⁴⁰I will put you in charge of my country, and all my people will obey your orders. Your authority will be second only to mine.

⁴¹I now appoint you governor over all Egypt.”

⁴²The king removed from his finger the ring engraved with the royal seal and put it on Joseph's finger. He put a fine linen robe on him, and placed a gold chain around his neck.

⁴³He gave him the second royal chariot to ride in, and his guard of honor went ahead of him and cried out, “Make way! Make way!” And so Joseph was appointed governor over all Egypt.

⁴⁴The king said to him, “I am the king—and no one in all Egypt shall so much as lift a hand or a foot without your permission.”

^45-46He gave Joseph the Egyptian name Zaphenath Paneah, and he gave him a wife, Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, a priest in the city of Heliopolis. Joseph was thirty years old when he began to serve the king of Egypt. He left the king's court and traveled all over the land.

⁴⁷During the seven years of plenty the land produced abundant crops,

⁴⁸all of which Joseph collected and stored in the cities. In each city he stored the food from the fields around it.

⁴⁹There was so much grain that Joseph stopped measuring it—it was like the sand of the sea.

⁵⁰Before the years of famine came, Joseph had two sons by Asenath.

⁵¹He said, “God has made me forget all my sufferings and all my father's family”; so he named his first son Manasseh.

⁵²He also said, “God has given me children in the land of my trouble”; so he named his second son Ephraim.

⁵³The seven years of plenty that the land of Egypt had enjoyed came to an end,

⁵⁴and the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in every other country, but there was food throughout Egypt.

⁵⁵When the Egyptians began to be hungry, they cried out to the king for food. So he ordered them to go to Joseph and do what he told them.

⁵⁶The famine grew worse and spread over the whole country, so Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians.

⁵⁷People came to Egypt from all over the world to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe everywhere.

Joseph's Brothers Go to Egypt to Buy Grain

¹When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why don't you do something?

²I hear that there is grain in Egypt; go there and buy some to keep us from starving to death.”

³So Joseph's ten half brothers went to buy grain in Egypt,

⁴but Jacob did not send Joseph's full brother Benjamin with them, because he was afraid that something might happen to him.

⁵The sons of Jacob came with others to buy grain, because there was famine in the land of Canaan.

⁶Joseph, as governor of the land of Egypt, was selling grain to people from all over the world. So Joseph's brothers came and bowed down before him with their faces to the ground.

⁷When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he acted as if he did not know them. He asked them harshly, “Where do you come from?” “We have come from Canaan to buy food,” they answered.

⁸Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him.

⁹He remembered the dreams he had dreamed about them and said, “You are spies; you have come to find out where our country is weak.”

¹⁰“No, sir,” they answered. “We have come as your slaves, to buy food.

¹¹We are all brothers. We are not spies, sir, we are honest men.”

¹²Joseph said to them, “No! You have come to find out where our country is weak.”

¹³They said, “We were twelve brothers in all, sir, sons of the same man in the land of Canaan. One brother is dead, and the youngest is now with our father.”

¹⁴“It is just as I said,” Joseph answered. “You are spies.

¹⁵This is how you will be tested: I swear by the name of the king that you will never leave unless your youngest brother comes here.

¹⁶One of you must go and get him. The rest of you will be kept under guard until the truth of what you say can be tested. Otherwise, as sure as the king lives, you are spies.”

¹⁷With that, he put them in prison for three days.

¹⁸On the third day Joseph said to them, “I am a God-fearing man, and I will spare your lives on one condition.

¹⁹To prove that you are honest, one of you will stay in the prison where you have been kept; the rest of you may go and take back to your starving families the grain that you have bought.

²⁰Then you must bring your youngest brother to me. This will prove that you have been telling the truth, and I will not put you to death.” They agreed to this

²¹and said to one another, “Yes, now we are suffering the consequences of what we did to our brother; we saw the great trouble he was in when he begged for help, but we would not listen. That is why we are in this trouble now.”

²²Reuben said, “I told you not to harm the boy, but you wouldn't listen. And now we are being paid back for his death.”

²³Joseph understood what they said, but they did not know it, because they had been speaking to him through an interpreter.

²⁴Joseph left them and began to cry. When he was able to speak again, he came back, picked out Simeon, and had him tied up in front of them.

Joseph's Brothers Return to Canaan

²⁵Joseph gave orders to fill his brothers' packs with grain, to put each man's money back in his sack, and to give them food for the trip. This was done.

²⁶The brothers loaded their donkeys with the grain they had bought, and then they left.

²⁷At the place where they spent the night, one of them opened his sack to feed his donkey and found his money at the top of the sack.

²⁸“My money has been returned to me,” he called to his brothers. “Here it is in my sack!” Their hearts sank, and in fear they asked one another, “What has God done to us?”

²⁹When they came to their father Jacob in Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them:

³⁰“The governor of Egypt spoke harshly to us and accused us of spying against his country.

³¹‘We are not spies,’ we answered, ‘we are honest men.

³²We were twelve brothers in all, sons of the same father. One brother is dead, and the youngest is still in Canaan with our father.’

³³The man answered, ‘This is how I will find out if you are honest men: One of you will stay with me; the rest will take grain for your starving families and leave.

³⁴Bring your youngest brother to me. Then I will know that you are not spies, but honest men; I will give your brother back to you, and you can stay here and trade.’”

³⁵Then when they emptied out their sacks, every one of them found his bag of money; and when they saw the money, they and their father Jacob were afraid.

³⁶Their father said to them, “Do you want to make me lose all my children? Joseph is gone; Simeon is gone; and now you want to take away Benjamin. I am the one who suffers!”

³⁷Reuben said to his father, “If I do not bring Benjamin back to you, you can kill my two sons. Put him in my care, and I will bring him back.”

³⁸But Jacob said, “My son cannot go with you; his brother is dead, and he is the only one left. Something might happen to him on the way. I am an old man, and the sorrow you would cause me would kill me.”

¹And now, Job, listen carefully to all that I have to say.

²I am ready to say what's on my mind.

³All my words are sincere, and I am speaking the truth.

⁴God's spirit made me and gave me life.

⁵Answer me if you can. Prepare your arguments.

⁶You and I are the same in God's sight, both of us were formed from clay.

⁷So you have no reason to fear me; I will not overpower you.

⁸Now this is what I heard you say:

⁹“I am not guilty; I have done nothing wrong. I am innocent and free from sin.

¹⁰But God finds excuses for attacking me and treats me like an enemy.

¹¹He binds chains on my feet; he watches every move I make.”

¹²But I tell you, Job, you are wrong. God is greater than any human being.

¹³Why do you accuse God of never answering our complaints?

¹⁴Although God speaks again and again, no one pays attention to what he says.

¹⁵At night when people are asleep, God speaks in dreams and visions.

¹⁶He makes them listen to what he says, and they are frightened at his warnings.

¹⁷God speaks to make them stop their sinning and to save them from becoming proud.

¹⁸He will not let them be destroyed; he saves them from death itself.

¹⁹God corrects us by sending sickness and filling our bodies with pain.

²⁰Those who are sick lose their appetites, and even the finest food looks revolting.

²¹Their bodies waste away to nothing; you can see all their bones;

²²they are about to go to the world of the dead.

²³Perhaps an angel may come to their aid— one of God's thousands of angels, who remind us of our duty.

²⁴In mercy the angel will say, “Release them! They are not to go down to the world of the dead. Here is the ransom to set them free.”

²⁵Their bodies will grow young and strong again;

²⁶when they pray, God will answer; they will worship God with joy; God will set things right for them again.

²⁷Each one will say in public, “I have sinned. I have not done right, but God spared me.

²⁸He kept me from going to the world of the dead, and I am still alive.”

²⁹God does all this again and again;

³⁰each one saves a person's life, and gives him the joy of living.

³¹Now, Job, listen to what I am saying; be quiet and let me speak.

³²But if you have something to say, let me hear it; I would gladly admit you are in the right.

³³But if not, be quiet and listen to me, and I will teach you how to be wise.

^1-2You men are so wise, so clever; listen now to what I am saying.

³You know good food when you taste it, but not wise words when you hear them.

⁴It is up to us to decide the case.

⁵Job claims that he is innocent, that God refuses to give him justice.

⁶He asks, “How could I lie and say I am wrong? I am fatally wounded, but I am sinless.”

⁷Have you ever seen anyone like this man Job? He never shows respect for God.

⁸He likes the company of evil people and goes around with sinners.

⁹He says that it never does any good to try to follow God's will.

¹⁰Listen to me, you men who understand! Will Almighty God do what is wrong?

¹¹He rewards people for what they do and treats them as they deserve.

¹²Almighty God does not do evil; he is never unjust to anyone.

¹³Did God get his power from someone else? Did someone put him in charge of the world?

¹⁴If God took back the breath of life,

¹⁵then everyone living would die and turn into dust again.

¹⁶Now listen to me, if you are wise.

¹⁷Are you condemning the righteous God? Do you think that he hates justice?

¹⁸God condemns kings and rulers when they are worthless or wicked.

¹⁹He does not take the side of rulers nor favor the rich over the poor, for he created everyone.

²⁰We may suddenly die at night. God strikes us down and we perish; he kills the mighty with no effort at all.

²¹He watches every step we take.

²²There is no darkness dark enough to hide a sinner from God.

²³God does not need to set a time for us to go and be judged by him.

²⁴He does not need an investigation to remove leaders and replace them with others.

²⁵Because he knows what they do; he overthrows them and crushes them by night.

²⁶He punishes sinners where all can see it,

²⁷because they have stopped following him and ignored all his commands.

²⁸They forced the poor to cry out to God, and he heard their calls for help.

²⁹If God decided to do nothing at all, no one could criticize him. If he hid his face, we would be helpless.

³⁰There would be nothing that nations could do to keep godless oppressors from ruling them.

³¹Job, have you confessed your sins to God and promised not to sin again?

³²Have you asked God to show you your faults, and have you agreed to stop doing evil?

³³Since you object to what God does, can you expect him to do what you want? The decision is yours, not mine; tell us now what you think.

³⁴Any sensible person will surely agree; and the wise who hear me will say

³⁵that Job is speaking from ignorance and that nothing he says makes sense.

³⁶Think through everything that Job says; you will see that he talks like an evil man.

³⁷To his sins he adds rebellion; in front of us all he mocks God.

The Benefits of Wisdom

¹My children, listen to what your father teaches you. Pay attention, and you will have understanding.

²What I am teaching you is good, so remember it all.

³When I was only a little boy, my parents' only son,

⁴my father would teach me. He would say, “Remember what I say and never forget it. Do as I tell you, and you will live.

⁵Get wisdom and insight! Do not forget or ignore what I say.

⁶Do not abandon wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will keep you safe.

⁷Getting wisdom is the most important thing you can do. Whatever else you get, get insight.

⁸Love wisdom, and she will make you great. Embrace her, and she will bring you honor.

⁹She will be your crowning glory.”