Mwanzo 45

¹Joseph could hold back no longer in front of all the attendants around him. “Send everyone out of here!” he cried. So he was alone with his brothers when he told them who he was. ²He wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and word of it reached Pharaoh’s household. ³“I am Joseph!” he said to his brothers. “Is my father really still alive?” His brothers were too shaken to say a word, dismayed to be standing before him. ⁴Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please, come closer.” When they had come closer, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt. ⁵But now, do not be upset, and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here. It was God who sent me on ahead of you, to keep people alive. ⁶The famine has now gripped the land for two years, and for five more years there will be no plowing and no harvest. ⁷God sent me ahead of you to make sure your family would survive on the earth, and to save your lives in a great act of rescue.^{a 8}So it was not really you who sent me here, but God. And he has made me a father to Pharaoh, master of his whole household and ruler of all Egypt. ⁹Go up to my father quickly and tell him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me master of all Egypt. Come down to me without wasting any time. ¹⁰You can settle in the region of Goshen and be close to me, you and your children and grandchildren, your sheep and goats and cattle, and everything that belongs to you. ¹¹I will supply your needs there, since there are still five years of famine ahead. Otherwise you, your family and all you have will end up in want.’ ¹²You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that it is really I who am speaking to you. ¹³Tell my father about all the honor I have in Egypt and everything you have seen. And hurry, bring my father down here.” ¹⁴Then he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin wept as he embraced him. ¹⁵He kissed each of his brothers and wept as he held them. Only then were his brothers able to talk with him. ¹⁶News reached Pharaoh’s palace that Joseph’s brothers had arrived, and Pharaoh and his officials were glad. ¹⁷Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Tell your brothers to load up their animals and return to the land of Canaan. ¹⁸They are to bring their father and their families and come to me. I will give them the best land in Egypt, and they will live off the richest produce in the country. ¹⁹And you are to give them this order as well: take carts from Egypt for their children and their wives, and bring their father here. ²⁰They need not worry about the things they leave behind, because the best of all Egypt will be theirs.” ²¹The sons of Israel did as they were told. Joseph gave them carts at Pharaoh’s command, and supplies for the road. ²²He gave each of them a new set of clothes, but to Benjamin he gave about 7.5 pounds of silver and five sets of clothes. ²³To his father he sent the same, and more: ten donkeys laden with the finest goods of Egypt, and ten female donkeys carrying grain, bread and food for his father’s journey. ²⁴Then he sent his brothers off, and as they left he told them, “Do not argue with each other on the way.”^{b 25}So they left Egypt and went up to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan. ²⁶“Joseph is alive!” they told him. “He is governor of the whole land of Egypt!” Jacob was stunned; he could not believe them. ²⁷But when they repeated to him everything Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the carts Joseph had sent to carry him, their father Jacob’s spirit came back to life. ²⁸“Enough!” said Israel. “My son Joseph is still alive! I will go and see him before I die.”