Genesis 37

37 ¹ Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as a foreigner, the land of Canaan. ² This is the account of Jacob's family. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers — the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph brought their father a bad report about them. ³ Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. And he made him an ornate robe. ⁴ When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

⁵ Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. ⁶ He said to them, "Listen to this dream I had: ⁷ We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it."

⁸ His brothers said to him, "Do you really intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?" And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. ⁹ Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. "Listen," he said, "I had another dream — the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me." ¹⁰ When he told his father and brothers, his father rebuked him. "What is this dream you had?" he asked. "Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?" ¹¹ His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Sent to His Brothers

¹² Now his brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near Shechem. ¹³ Israel said to Joseph, "Aren't your brothers grazing the flocks at Shechem? Come, I am sending you to them." "Here I am," Joseph replied.

¹⁴ So he said to him, "Go and see how your brothers are and how the flocks are doing, and come back and tell me." Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron, and Joseph arrived at Shechem. ¹⁵ A man found him wandering in the fields and asked him, "What are you looking for?"

¹⁶ He replied, "I'm looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?"

¹⁷ "They have moved on from here," the man said. "I heard them say, 'Let's go to Dothan.'" So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan.

¹⁸ They saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

¹⁹ "Here comes that dreamer!" they said to one another. ²⁰ "Come on, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a wild animal devoured him. Then we'll see what becomes of his dreams."

²¹ When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue Joseph from their hands. "Let's not take his life," he said. ²² "Don't shed any blood," Reuben said to them. "Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him." Reuben said this to rescue Joseph from them and take him back to his father. ²³ So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe — the ornate robe he was wearing ²⁴ —and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; no water was in it.

²⁵ As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm, and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. ²⁶ Judah said to his brothers, "What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? ²⁷ Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh." And his brothers agreed. ²⁸ So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.

²⁹ When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. ³⁰ He went back to his brothers and said, "The boy is gone! Where can I turn now?"

³¹ Then they took Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. ³² They sent the ornate robe back to their father with the message, "We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son's robe."

³³ He recognized it and said, "It is my son's robe! A wild animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces." ³⁴ Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on mourning clothes, and mourned for his son many days. ³⁵ All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. "No," he said, "I will go down to the grave mourning to my son." So his father wept for him. ^a a v35 Sheol is the realm of the dead — a shadowy place where everyone goes at death, not the later New Testament idea of hell as a place of judgment. ³⁶ Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials and the captain of the guard.