The Garden of Eden: Stories from the first nine books of the Old TestamentHodges, George
Religion
The Garden of Eden: Stories from the first nine books of the Old Testament
Hodges, George
Bible stories, English -- Old Testament
Another time, after the cows were milked and the older brothers came in
to wash their hands for supper, and found Joseph with his bright coat
flapping about his ankles, they said, “Well, King Joseph, what foolish
dream have you had to-day?”
And Joseph answered, “To-day I dreamed that the sun and the moon and
eleven stars bowed down to me.”
Even his father did not quite like that. “What,” he said, “shall your
mother and I and your brothers bow down to you?”
But his brothers hated him. And once, when four of them so misbehaved
themselves that Joseph told his father what they had done, they hated
him yet the more.
Now, when Joseph was seventeen years old, his brothers took the sheep
one day and led them so far in search of green pastures that their
father did not know where they had gone. So he called Joseph. “Joseph,”
he said, “you know which way your brothers went; go after them and see
if all is well with them and with the flocks, and bring me word again.”
So Joseph started out to find his brothers, and here he searched and
there he searched, till at last he found a man who knew where they had
gone, and there they were. So his brothers looked up, and in the
distance, shining in the sun, they saw the coat of many colors, like a
walking rainbow. And they said, “There is the dreamer!” And some said,
“Come, now, let us kill him and we shall see what will become of his
dreams.” And others said, “No, let us not kill him. That will do us no
good. Let us sell him; we will get some money.” So when Joseph came
near, they laid hold of him, and pulled off his colored coat, and put
him down in a deep pit till they should make up their minds what to do
with him, whether to kill him or to sell him.
There, then, was Joseph, in the pit, calling and crying; and his
brothers sat down to eat their supper. And as they ate, they saw in the
distance a caravan of merchants on their camels, riding down from Gilead
with bags of spices and balm and myrrh, to Egypt. And as they passed,
the brothers hailed them and said, “We have a boy to sell. What will you
give for him?” And they pulled up Joseph out of the pit, and the
merchants looked at him, and said, “We will give twenty pieces of
silver.” So Joseph’s brothers sold him for twenty pieces of silver. And
the merchants put him on the back of a camel, and away they went.
Then said the brothers one to another, “What shall we say to father?”
And some said, “Let us kill a goat, and take the coat of many colors and
dip it in the blood, and tell father that we found it in a field.” And
that they did. They carried the bloody coat to Jacob, and said, “See
what we found. Is it not Joseph’s coat?”
And Jacob cried out at the sight of it. “Yes,” he said, “it is my son’s
coat. Some wild beast has devoured him. Joseph is no doubt torn to
pieces.” And he mourned for him, day after day, and nobody could comfort
him.
But the men of the caravan carried Joseph down to Egypt, and there sold
him to a man named Potiphar, who
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