After a time, Jacob sent Joseph to some far-off fields to see how his brothers and the flocks were getting on, for Jacob and his sons were shepherds. When the brothers saw him coming, they remembered about his dream, and they determined to kill him, and cast his body into a pit. But Reuben, his eldest brother, wished to save him out of their hands, so he advised them to put him into the pit alive, intending to come presently and take him back to their father. But while Reuben was away, some merchants came by on camels, on their way down to Egypt, and the brothers decided to sell Joseph to them. Though the lad wept and besought them not to be so cruel, they would not hear. So the merchants gave them twenty pieces of silver for their brother, and put him on a camel, and took him a long way off to sell him for a slave. Then the brothers took Joseph's coat of many colours, and dipped it in the blood of a little goat, and carried the coat back to Jacob, telling him they supposed Joseph must have been killed by a wild beast, as that was how they had found his coat! But "God meant it for good" all the time, and afterwards we see how this was. So the unkind brothers let their poor father grieve for Joseph for many many years. Meanwhile Joseph was brought by the merchants down to Egypt, which is the country that joins on to the land of Canaan at the bottom—or south. The master who bought him from the merchants treated him very kindly, and when he saw how God prospered all that Joseph did, he made him overseer of all his property. But all at once another trouble came to Joseph! He was falsely accused to his master, and was cast into prison. Still God meant it for good, and Joseph behaved so well in the prison (for God was with him), that the keeper of the prison took the fetters off his feet, and gave him the charge of all the other prisoners. See, children, what a nice thing it is to serve God in difficult circumstances! By and by, after a very long time, Joseph was taken to Pharaoh, the great King of Egypt, to tell him the meaning of a wonderful dream, which had frightened him very much. Thus step by step the slave-boy was being brought to the king's palace. God gave Joseph wisdom and favour. He was not only able to tell Pharaoh the meaning of his dream, that there would be seven years of plentiful harvests and seven years of famine; but he gave the king such good advice that the Egyptians were delighted, and Pharaoh put Joseph at the head of everything to carry it out. The advice was, to carefully store up the corn in the good years, so that there would be enough for the bad years. And it was in those bad years of famine that old Jacob—Joseph's dear father—sent ten of his sons down to Egypt to buy corn. They had no idea that the great ruler, who, they heard, was selling corn to the hungry people, was their own brother, whom they had sold for a slave thirteen years before!