The Daily Audio Bible

Joseph tests his brothers

44 Joseph told the servant who took care of his house, ‘Fill the men's bags. Give them as much food as their animals can carry. Put each man's money back in the top of his bag. ² Then take my silver cup and put it in the top of the youngest man's bag. Put it with the money that he brought to pay for his food.’ The servant did what Joseph had told him to do. ³ When morning came, the men started their journey with their donkeys. ⁴ They had travelled only a short way from the city. Then Joseph said to his servant, ‘Go now and follow those men. When you find them, say to them, “My master was kind to you. So why have you done this bad thing against us? ⁵ You have taken my master's own special cup. It is the cup that he drinks from. He also uses it to find out about future things. You have done a very bad thing!” ’

⁶ So Joseph's servant followed the men and he reached them. He told them Joseph's message. ⁷ But the brothers said to him, ‘Sir, why do you say these things? We are your servants. We would not do anything like that! ⁸ When we found the money in our bags last time, we brought it back to you from Canaan. So we would never take valuable silver or gold things from your master's house. ⁹ If any one of us has this silver cup, he must die. We others will become your slaves, sir.’ ¹⁰ The servant said, ‘What you say is fair. Whoever has the cup, will become my slave. The rest of you will go free.’

¹¹ Each of the brothers quickly put his bag on the ground and opened it. ¹² Then the servant began to look in the bags. He began with the oldest brother's bag and he finished with the youngest brother's bag. Then he found the cup in Benjamin's bag! ¹³ When this happened, all the brothers were very upset. They tore their clothes. Then they put their bags back on their donkeys. They returned to the city.

¹⁴ Joseph was still in his house when Judah and his brothers arrived. They threw themselves on the ground in front of Joseph. ¹⁵ Joseph said, ‘Why have you done this bad thing? You should have known about an important man like me. I can use magic to find out what people do.’ ¹⁶ Judah said, ‘We do not know what to say to you, my lord. We cannot say that we did not do this. God has shown that we are guilty of this sin. Now we are your slaves. We are all your slaves, as well as the one who had your cup in his bag.’

¹⁷ But Joseph said, ‘I would not do a thing like that! Only the man who had the cup will be my slave. The rest of you can return to your father. You may go as my friends.’

¹⁸ Then Judah went and he spoke to Joseph. He said, ‘Please, my lord. Let me speak to you. You have all of Pharaoh's authority, but please do not be angry with me, your servant. ¹⁹ You asked us, “Do you have a father or another brother?” ²⁰ And we replied, “We have a father who is very old. He has a young son who was born when our father was already old. That son's brother is dead. He is the only son of his mother who still lives. His father loves him.” ²¹ Then you said, “Bring your youngest brother to me so that I can see him.” ²² And we said, “The boy cannot leave his father. If he leaves him, his father will die.” ²³ But you said to us, “Your youngest brother must come with you. If he does not come, I will not let you see me again.” ²⁴ We returned to our father and we told him what you said. ²⁵ After some time, our father said, “Go back to Egypt and buy some more food for us.” ²⁶ But we said, “We cannot go back there. We can only go if our youngest brother goes with us. If he is not with us, we will not be able to see the man again.” ²⁷ Then my father said to us, “My wife gave birth to two sons. ²⁸ One of them went away and he never returned. So I said, ‘A wild animal must have eaten him.’ I have not seen him since that happened. ²⁹ If you take my youngest son away from me too, something bad may happen to him. I am already an old man. If I lose Benjamin, I would be so sad that I would die.” ’

³⁰ Judah continued and he said, ‘So, my lord, I could not go back to my father without his youngest son. My father stays alive because of this boy. ³¹ If my father sees that his son is not with us, he will die. Because we did not bring the boy back to him, he will be sad enough to die. ³² I promised my father that I would take care of the boy. I said, “I will bring the boy back. If I do not, then you can say that I am guilty. I will be guilty for all of my life.” ³³ Please sir, let me stay here as your slave, instead of the boy. Let the boy return home with his brothers. ³⁴ I cannot go back to my father if the boy is not with me. I never want to see how upset my father would be.’^[a]

Joseph says who he is

45 After Judah said this, Joseph could not control himself. He did not want to cry in front of all his servants. So he shouted, ‘Make everyone go away from me!’ So there was no one still there with Joseph, except his brothers. Then he told his brothers who he was. ² Joseph wept loudly, so that the Egyptians heard him. All the people in Pharaoh's house knew about it.

³ Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?’ But his brothers could not answer him because they were too frightened. They could see Joseph was there in front of them!^[b]

⁴ Then Joseph said to them, ‘Come near to me.’ So they did that. He said, ‘I am your brother Joseph. I am the one that you sold to become a slave in Egypt! ⁵ But do not be upset. Do not be angry with yourselves because you sold me like that. No! It was God who sent me here! He sent me here before you came. He did that so that I could save people's lives. ⁶ There has been a famine for two years already. No food will grow for another five years. ⁷ But God sent me to come here before you. Because of that, your family would stay alive. God would do a great thing to save you and your descendants. ⁸ So you did not really send me here. It was God who did that! He made me Pharaoh's most important officer, as if I am his father. I take care of everything in Pharaoh's palace. I have authority to rule over all of Egypt.^{[c] 9} Now hurry back to my father. Say to him, “This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord over all Egypt. Come here to me. Come now. ¹⁰ You can live in the region called Goshen. You, your children and your grandchildren can live there. You can bring your sheep, goats and cows, together with everything that you have. In Goshen you will all be near me. ¹¹ I will take care of you there. I will give food to you, because there will be five more years of famine. If you do not come here, you and all your family and servants will become very poor.” ’

¹² Joseph continued to say to his brothers, ‘As I speak to you now, you can all see clearly that I really am Joseph. My brother Benjamin also knows that. ¹³ Tell my father about the authority that I have here in Egypt. Tell him about everything that you have seen here. Then bring my father here quickly.’

¹⁴ Then Joseph hugged his brother Benjamin and he wept. Benjamin hugged Joseph and he also wept. ¹⁵ Joseph continued to weep as he kissed each of his other brothers too. After this, his brothers began to talk to Joseph.

¹⁶ Pharaoh then heard that Joseph's brothers had arrived in Egypt. Pharaoh and his officers were happy to know that. ¹⁷ Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Tell your brothers to do this. Say to them, “Put food on your donkeys and return home to Canaan. ¹⁸ Then bring your father and your families to come here to me. I will give you the best land in Egypt to live on. You will have all the best things that the land gives to you.”  ¹⁹ You must also tell your brothers, “Take some carts from here in Egypt. Your wives and children can ride in them to come back here. Bring your father and come quickly. ²⁰ Do not worry. You do not have to bring all your things from your own country. The best things of Egypt will belong to you.” ’

²¹ So Jacob's sons did what Pharaoh said. Joseph gave them carts as Pharaoh had told him to do. He also gave them food for their journey. ²² Joseph gave new clothes to each of his brothers. But he gave 300 silver coins and five sets of clothes to Benjamin. ²³ Joseph also sent these things to his father:

²⁴ Then Joseph sent his brothers to start their journey. As they left, he said to them, ‘Do not argue with each other on your way home!’

²⁵ The brothers left Egypt and they returned home to their father Jacob in Canaan. ²⁶ They told him, ‘Joseph is still alive! He rules over all of Egypt!’ Jacob was so surprised that he did not believe what they said. ²⁷ So Jacob's sons told him everything that Joseph had said to them. Jacob saw the carts that Joseph had sent to carry him back to Egypt. Then Jacob felt stronger again. ²⁸ Jacob said, ‘Now I believe you! My son Joseph is still alive! I will go and see him before I die.’

Jesus gives food to 5,000 men and their families

¹³ Jesus heard about what had happened to John. After that, he went away from that place. He sailed in a boat to a quiet place where he could be alone. But the crowd heard where Jesus had gone. So they left their towns and they went on land to the place where he was going. ¹⁴ Jesus got out of the boat. He saw a large crowd there on the shore. He felt sorry for them. There were sick people among them and he made them well again.

¹⁵ When it was almost evening, Jesus' disciples came to speak to him. They said to him, ‘We are in a place where there are no houses. It will soon be dark. Send the crowd away now, so that they can go to the villages near here. Then they can buy some food for themselves to eat.’

¹⁶ Jesus said to them, ‘The people do not need to go away. You should give them some food to eat.’

¹⁷ But the disciples said, ‘We only have five loaves of bread and two fish.’

¹⁸ ‘Bring the bread and fish here to me,’ Jesus said. ¹⁹ Then he said to the large crowd, ‘Sit down on the grass.’ He took the five loaves of bread and the two fish. He looked up to heaven and he thanked God for the bread and the fish. Then he broke the bread into pieces. He gave the pieces of bread to his disciples, and they gave them to the crowd. ²⁰ Then everybody ate. They all had enough food and they were not hungry any more. Then the disciples picked up all the bits of food that people had not eaten. They filled 12 baskets with little bits of bread and fish. ²¹ About 5,000 men ate the bread and fish. Women and children also ate it with them.^[a]

Jesus walks on the water

²² Immediately after this, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Get in the boat and sail across to the other side of the lake.’ Jesus said that he would first send the crowd away. Then he would also leave. ²³ So Jesus sent the crowd away. After they had gone, he went up on a mountain alone to pray. When it became dark, he was still there alone. ²⁴ At this time the boat with the disciples in it was in the middle of the lake. It was a long way from the land. The wind was blowing against the boat and the water was hitting it.

²⁵ Then, when it was nearly dawn, Jesus walked on the water towards his disciples. ²⁶ The disciples saw him walking on the water. They were very frightened. ‘It is a spirit,’ they said. They screamed loudly because they were afraid.

²⁷ But immediately Jesus said to them. ‘Be brave! It is I. Do not be afraid.’

²⁸ Peter replied, ‘Lord, is it really you? If it is you, say to me, “Come here! Walk to me on the water.” ’

²⁹ Jesus said to him, ‘Come to me.’

So Peter got down out of the boat. He walked on the water and he came towards Jesus. ³⁰ But then Peter saw that the wind was still blowing strongly. He became afraid and he began to go down into the water. He shouted to Jesus, ‘Lord, save me!’

³¹ Immediately, Jesus put out his hand and he took hold of Peter. He said to Peter, ‘You should trust me more than you do. Why did you not believe that I could help you?’

³² Jesus and Peter climbed up into the boat. Then the strong wind stopped. ³³ The disciples who were in the boat went down on their knees. They praised Jesus and they said to him, ‘It is true. You are really the Son of God.’

³⁴ They sailed across the lake and reached the shore at a place called Gennesaret.^[b]

³⁵ The people who lived in that place recognized Jesus. So they went to tell everyone who lived in places near there. People brought all their sick friends to him. ³⁶ The sick people asked Jesus for help. They wanted to touch only the edge of his coat. Every sick person who touched him became well again.

¹¹ I am teaching you to be wise, so that you will know the right way to live. ¹² As you walk through life, nothing will stop you. Even when you run, you will not fall.

¹³ Keep hold of my teaching. Do not forget it. Keep it safe because it will give you a good life.