The Daily Audio Bible

Joseph and his brothers

37 Jacob lived in Canaan, the land where his father had lived.^[a]

² This is the report about Jacob and his family.

Joseph was Jacob's son. When he was 17 years old, he took care of his father's sheep and goats. He did this together with his brothers. These were the sons of his father's wives, Bilhah and Zilpah. Sometimes Joseph told his father bad things about his brothers.

³ Jacob loved Joseph more than he loved any of his other sons. This was because Joseph was born when Jacob was old. So Jacob made a special coat for Joseph. ⁴ Joseph's brothers knew that Jacob loved him more than he loved them. So they hated Joseph. They could not say anything nice to him.

⁵ One night, Joseph had a dream and he told his brothers about it. When they heard about the dream, Joseph's brothers hated him even more than they did before. ⁶ Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Listen to what happened in my dream: ⁷ We were out in the field tying the crops together into bundles. Then my bundle stood up. Your bundles stood in a circle round my bundle. And all your bundles bent down to respect my bundle.’

⁸ Joseph's brothers said to him, ‘Do you really think that you will be like a king and rule over us like that?’ They hated Joseph even more because of what he told them about his dream.

⁹ Then Joseph had another dream and he told his brothers about it. He said, ‘Listen to me. I have had another dream. This is what happened: The sun, the moon and 11 stars bent down in front of me.’ ¹⁰ Joseph told his father and his brothers about the dream. Jacob, his father, was angry with him. He said to Joseph, ‘You should not tell us about a dream like that! Do you really think that I, your mother and your brothers will come and bend down in front of you?’ ¹¹ Joseph's brothers were very jealous of him. But Jacob thought carefully about what Joseph had said.

¹² One day, Joseph's brothers had taken their father's sheep to eat grass in the fields. This was near Shechem city. ¹³ Jacob said to Joseph, ‘You know that your brothers have taken my sheep to eat grass near Shechem. I want you to go to them.’ Joseph replied, ‘I am ready to go.’ ¹⁴ So Jacob said to Joseph, ‘Go and see if your brothers are well. See if the sheep have enough grass to eat. Then come back and tell me news about them.’ Then Jacob sent Joseph from the Valley of Hebron to go to them. ¹⁵ When Joseph arrived near Shechem and he was walking in the fields there, a man met him. He asked Joseph, ‘What are you looking for?’ ¹⁶ Joseph replied, ‘I am looking for my brothers. They have taken the sheep to eat grass. Please tell me where they are.’ ¹⁷ The man said, ‘They have moved away from here. I heard them say, “Let us go to Dothan.” ’

So Joseph went to look for his brothers. He found them at Dothan. ¹⁸ But his brothers recognized Joseph, while he was still far away. Before he had arrived where they were, they decided on a way to kill him. ¹⁹ They said to each other, ‘Here comes the man who likes to dream! ²⁰ We will kill him. We can throw him into one of the dry wells. We can tell people that a wild animal ate him. Then his dreams will never become true!’

²¹ When Reuben heard this, he tried to save Joseph from the other brothers. He said, ‘We should not kill him. ²² Do not even get his blood on your hands. Just throw him into this dry well here in the wilderness. But do not attack him.’ Reuben said this to save Joseph, so that his brothers would not kill him. Then later, Reuben could take Joseph back to his father.

²³ So Joseph arrived at where his brothers were. He was wearing his special coat, but they took it off him. ²⁴ Then they took hold of Joseph and they threw him into the empty well. It had no water in it.

²⁵ Then the brothers sat down to eat their meal. They looked up and they saw a group of Ishmaelites coming towards them. They were coming from Gilead region. They were riding on camels that carried spices, and different kinds of oils for medicine. They were taking them to sell in Egypt.

²⁶ Judah said to his brothers, ‘We could kill our brother and then hide his body. But then we will not get anything for ourselves. ²⁷ So let us sell him to these Ishmaelites. We do not need to hurt him. Then we will not have to kill him. We should remember that he is our brother. He is our own relative.’ Judah's brothers agreed with what he said. ²⁸ When the Midianite traders came near to Joseph's brothers, they pulled him out of the dry well. They sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 silver coins. The Ishmaelites took Joseph with them to Egypt.

²⁹ Later, Reuben returned to the dry well. He saw that Joseph was not there. He tore his clothes because he was very upset. ³⁰ Reuben went back to his brothers. He said to them, ‘The boy is not in the well! What can I do now?’^[b]

³¹ Then the brothers killed a goat. They took its blood and they put the blood all over Joseph's special coat. ³² They took the coat back to their father and they told him, ‘We found this coat. Look at it. Tell us if it is your son's coat.’ ³³ Jacob saw that it was Joseph's coat. He said, ‘It is my son's coat! A wild animal must have eaten him! The animal has torn Joseph's body into pieces.’

³⁴ Jacob was so upset that he tore his own clothes. He put on clothes made from sackcloth to show how sad he was. He wept for many days because his son had died.

³⁵ All Jacob's sons and daughters came to comfort him. But Jacob was very sad, so they could not make him happy. Jacob said, ‘I will be sad until the day that I die, because my son is dead.’ Jacob wept because Joseph was dead.

³⁶ While this was happening, the Midianites took Joseph into Egypt. They sold him to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officers. Potiphar had authority over all of Pharaoh's guards.

Judah's family^[c]

38 At that time, Judah left his brothers. He went to stay with a man from the town of Adullam. His name was Hirah. ² While he was there, Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man called Shua. Judah married her and he had sex with her. ³ She became pregnant, and she gave birth to a son. Judah gave him the name ‘Er’. ⁴ His wife became pregnant again, and she gave birth to another son. She gave him the name ‘Onan’. ⁵ Later, she gave birth to another son. She gave him the name ‘Shelah’. She gave birth to Shelah in Kezib.

⁶ Judah found a wife for his oldest son, Er. Her name was Tamar. ⁷ But the Lord saw that Er, Judah's firstborn son, was very bad. So the Lord caused him to die. ⁸ Then Judah said to Onan, ‘You should marry your dead brother's wife and have sex with her. You are her dead husband's brother. You must have a son who will become your dead brother's descendant.’^[d]

⁹ But Onan did not want Tamar to give birth to his child. He knew that the child would not belong to him. So when he had sex with his brother's wife Tamar, he made his semen go onto the ground. Onan did this so that Tamar would not give birth to a child for his dead brother.

¹⁰ What Onan did was bad, and the Lord was not pleased with him. So the Lord caused Onan to die too. ¹¹ Then Judah said to his son's widow, Tamar, ‘Go back to your father's house and live there as a widow. Stay there until my son Shelah grows older.’ Judah thought, ‘I do not want Shelah to die in the way that his brothers died.’ So Tamar went to live in her father's house.

¹² After a long time, Judah's wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had stopped being sad because of her death, he left his home to travel. He went with his friend, Hirah the Adullamite, to a place called Timnah. He went to see the men who were cutting the wool from his sheep. ¹³ Someone told Tamar, ‘Your husband's father is going to Timnah to get the wool from his sheep.’

¹⁴ Tamar knew that Judah's son Shelah had now become a man. But Judah had not yet let Shelah marry her. So Tamar took off her widow's clothes and she put on other clothes. She covered her head with a veil. She did not want anyone to recognize her. Then she sat at the gate of Enaim. Enaim is a town on the road that goes to Timnah.

¹⁵ Judah saw her as she sat there. He thought that she was a prostitute, because she had covered her face. ¹⁶ He did not know that she was his son's widow. He went to her at the side of the road. He said, ‘Let me have sex with you.’ Tamar asked him, ‘If I have sex with you, what will you give me?’ ¹⁷ Judah replied, ‘I will take a young goat from my animals and I will give it to you.’ Tamar said, ‘Please give me something now to show me that you will really send the goat to me.’ ¹⁸ Judah asked her, ‘What should I give you?’ Tamar replied, ‘Give me your special ring and the string that holds it. And give me the stick that is in your hand.’^[e] So Judah gave them to her. He had sex with her. As a result, she became pregnant.

¹⁹ After this, Tamar left there and she took off her veil. She put her widow's clothes on again.

²⁰ Judah sent his friend Hirah, the Adullamite, to take a young goat back to where the woman had been. Judah wanted to get his special things back from the woman. But Hirah could not find the woman. ²¹ He asked some men who lived there, ‘Where is the temple prostitute who sat by the road at Enaim?’^[f] But the men said, ‘There has not been any prostitute here.’

²² So Hirah went back to Judah, with the goat. He told him, ‘I did not find her. The men who lived there said, “There has not been any temple prostitute here.” ’ ²³ So Judah said, ‘Let her keep the things that I gave to her. People will laugh at me if you go back there again. I sent this young goat for her, as I promised, but you could not find her.’

²⁴ Three months later, someone told Judah, ‘Your dead son's wife, Tamar, has become a prostitute and now she is pregnant.’ Judah said, ‘Take her out of the town and burn her to death!’ ²⁵ So they took Tamar away to kill her. But she sent a message to her dead husband's father. She said, ‘The man that these things belong to had sex with me. That is why I am pregnant. Look at these things carefully. Do you know who the ring, its string, and the stick belong to?’

²⁶ Judah saw that the things belonged to him. He said, ‘She is more honest than I am. She has done this because I would not give her to my son, Shelah, as his wife.’ Judah did not have sex with Tamar again.

²⁷ The time came for Tamar to give birth, and there were twins! ²⁸ While she was giving birth, one baby put out his hand. The woman who was helping Tamar tied a red string to that baby's arm. She said, ‘This baby came out first.’ ²⁹ But then the baby moved his hand back inside and his brother came out first. The woman said, ‘You have opened a way for yourself to come out!’ So they gave him the name ‘Perez’.^{[g] 30} Then his brother came out, with the red string on his arm. They gave him the name ‘Zerah’.

Jesus talks about Satan

²² After that, some people brought a man to Jesus. The man had a bad spirit in him. Because of this, he was blind and he could not speak. Jesus caused the man to become well again. The man could speak again and he could see. ²³ When Jesus did this, all the people were very surprised. They asked each other, ‘Maybe this man is the Son of David that God will send to us. Could that be true?’

²⁴ The Pharisees also heard about what had happened. They said, ‘This man can send bad spirits out of people only because Beelzebul gives him authority.^[a] That is Satan, the one who rules all the bad spirits.’

²⁵ Jesus knew what the Pharisees were thinking. So he said to them, ‘If armies in a country fight each other, then they will destroy their own country. If people in one city or in one family fight each other, then they will destroy their own city or family. ²⁶ So Satan would not try to destroy himself. If Satan fights against himself, that would be the end of his own kingdom. ²⁷ Some of your disciples can also send bad spirits out of people. You would not say that it is Satan's power that helps them. So your own disciples show that you are wrong about this. ²⁸ I do send bad spirits out of people. I use the authority of God's Holy Spirit to do this. This shows that God has come to rule among you.

²⁹ Nobody can go easily into the house of a strong man to rob him. To do that, he must first tie up the strong man. Then he can take away all that man's valuable things.^[b]

³⁰ If someone does not agree to help me, he is working against me. You should work with me to bring people to me for help. If you do not do that, you are really making people run away from me. ³¹ God is able to forgive all the wrong things that people do, and the bad things that they say against other people. But God will never forgive people who say bad things against the Holy Spirit. ³² God will forgive people who say bad things against me, the Son of Man. But God will never forgive people who say bad things against the Holy Spirit.’ He will not forgive them now or ever.^[c]

Jesus talks about a tree and its fruit

³³ Then Jesus said, ‘To have good fruit you must have a good tree. If you have a bad tree, then you will get bad fruit from it. You can know all about a tree by the kind of fruit that it makes. ³⁴ You are like the children of dangerous snakes. You cannot say good things when your thoughts are bad. When you speak, your words show what is in your mind. ³⁵ It is like things that you bring out of a room where you keep them. The good man says good things because he keeps good thoughts in his mind. The bad man says bad things because he keeps bad thoughts in his mind. ³⁶ I tell you this: One day, God will judge everybody. On that day, he will ask you about every useless word that you have spoken. ³⁷ God will think about the words that you have spoken. Then he will decide whether to let you go free or to punish you.’

The Pharisees want to see Jesus do something powerful

³⁸ Then some teachers of God's Law and some Pharisees said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we want to see you do something powerful. This will show us that God has really sent you.’

³⁹ Jesus replied, ‘The people who are alive today are very bad. They do not obey God, but they want God to show them something powerful. But God will not do this for them. They will only see the same powerful thing that God did for his prophet Jonah. ⁴⁰ Jonah stayed inside a big fish for three days and three nights.^[d] In the same way, the Son of Man will remain in the ground for three days and three nights. ⁴¹ When God judges everyone, the people who lived in Nineveh will be there. They will stand up and they will speak against you. They will show that the people who are alive today are bad. When Jonah spoke to the people in Nineveh long ago, they stopped doing bad things. But look! There is someone here now who is greater than Jonah was.

⁴² Also, the Queen of Sheba travelled a long way to meet King Solomon. She wanted to hear his wise words. When God judges everyone, she will stand up. She will speak against you who are alive today. She will show that you are bad people. She listened to King Solomon. But look! There is someone here now who is greater than Solomon was. But you are not listening to me.’^[e]

⁴³ Jesus then said, ‘When a bad spirit leaves a person, it travels through dry places. It looks for a new place to live. But maybe it does not find anywhere. ⁴⁴ So it says to itself, “I will return to the place where I lived before.” Then it goes back to that person. It finds that the place is empty. Everything there is now good and clean. ⁴⁵ So the bad spirit goes out and it brings back seven other spirits. They are even worse than itself. They all go into the person and they live there. Now the person's life is even worse than it was before. The same thing will happen to you bad people who are alive today.’^[f]

David wrote this prayer.

God will help me

Wisdom causes you to help other people

²⁷ Do not refuse to help those people who need help. If you are able to help them, do it! ²⁸ If you can give your neighbour the help that he needs, do not say to him, ‘Go away! Come back tomorrow, and then I will help you.’

²⁹ Do not think of ways to hurt your neighbour. You should help him to trust you.

³⁰ Do not quarrel with other people if they have done nothing to hurt you. You have no reason to accuse them of anything wrong.

³¹ Do not be jealous of cruel people. Do not try to copy the things that they do. ³² The Lord hates wicked people. But he makes righteous people his friends.