Joseph Becomes a Slave

Genesis 37 and 39

     Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, had twelve sons. Their names were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph, and Benjamin.

     Joseph's father loved him more than all his other sons. When Joseph was seventeen, Israel gave him a beautiful coat with long sleeves. Joseph's big brothers became angry because their father loved Joseph best, and they had trouble speaking to him without fighting.

     Joseph had a dream, and he said to his brothers, "Listen to the dream I had! I dreamed we were tying up bundles of wheat in the field, " he said. My stood straight up, but your bundles all bowed down to mine."

     The brothers were angry. "Do you think you're a kind, so we have to bow to you?" they asked.

     The Joseph had another dream. He told his father and brothers, "I dreamed that the sun and the moon and eleven stars all bowed down to me."

     "Joseph what is this?" said Israel. "Should your mother and I and your brothers all bow down to you?" The brothers were very angry and jealous, but their father always remembered Joseph's dream.

     One day Israel sent Joseph up to the hill country near Shechem. "Your brothers are up there with the sheep and goats," he said. "Go see if everything is all right, and come back to tell me."

     Joseph went to those fields, but he found out that his brothers had gone to Dothan.

     His brothers saw him coming. "Here comes that dreamer," said one of them. "Let's get rid of him. Let's kill him and throw him in a pit. We can say that a wild animal killed him."

     "Don't hurt him," said Reuben, the oldest son. "Just throw him in the pit." Reuben was planning to come get Joseph out of the pit later.

     They took Joseph's fine coat and threw him in the it. Then they saw people going to Egypt with many camels. They sold Joseph to them as a slave for twenty pieces of silver.

     Reuben was not there when they sold his brother. When he came back to help Joseph out of the pit, he was very upset to find him gone.

     His brothers took Joseph's coat, dipped it in the blood of a goat, and showed it to their father.

     "A wild animal must have killed him!" his father said. Israel was very sad for many years, because he thought Joseph was dead. But Joseph was alive in Egypt, the slave of an army captain named Potiphar.

     God was with Joseph, and soon Potiphar noticed that everything Joseph did turned out well. He put Joseph in charge of his house, and he let him take care of some of his business. As soon as Potiphar did this, God blessed him, and Potiphar got very rich. So Potiphar let Joseph take charge of all his business.

     But Potiphar's wife got angry with Joseph, and she persuaded Potiphar to put Joseph in prison. But God took care of Joseph. Soon the prison keeper had Joseph watching the other prisoners and deciding what work would be done. He stopped worrying about any prison business because he knew he could trust Joseph.