אָב

And with her last breath—for she was dying—she named him Ben-oni. But his father called him Benjamin.

While Israel was living in that region, Reuben went in and slept with his father’s concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard about it. Jacob had twelve sons:

Jacob returned to his father Isaac at Mamre, near Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed.

This is the account of Esau, the father of the Edomites, in the area of Mount Seir.

These are the sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah. (This is the Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness as he was pasturing the donkeys of his father Zibeon.)

Magdiel, and Iram. These were the chiefs of Edom, according to their settlements in the land they possessed. Esau was the father of the Edomites.

Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had resided, the land of Canaan.

This is the account of Jacob. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was tending the flock with his brothers, the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

He told his father and brothers, but his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream that you have had? Will your mother and brothers and I actually come and bow down to the ground before you?”

And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept in mind what he had said.

Some time later, Joseph’s brothers had gone to pasture their father’s flocks near Shechem.

“Do not shed his blood. Throw him into this pit in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this so that he could rescue Joseph from their hands and return him to his father.

They sent the robe of many colors to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe or not.”

All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said. “I will go down to Sheol mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him.

Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up.” For he thought, “He may die too, like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.

Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, saying, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s household.”

But they answered, “Your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. The youngest is now with our father, and one is no more.”

When they reached their father Jacob in the land of Canaan, they described to him all that had happened to them:

We are twelve brothers, sons of one father. One is no more, and the youngest is now with our father in the land of Canaan.’

As they began emptying their sacks, there in each man’s sack was his bag of silver! And when they and their father saw the bags of silver, they were dismayed.

Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my sons. Joseph is gone and Simeon is no more. Now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is going against me!”

Then Reuben said to his father, “You may kill my two sons if I fail to bring him back to you. Put him in my care, and I will return him.”

So when Jacob’s sons had eaten all the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy us a little more food.”

They replied, “The man questioned us in detail about ourselves and our family: ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ And we answered him accordingly. How could we possibly know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother here’?”

And Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me, and we will go at once, so that we may live and not die—neither we, nor you, nor our children.

Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then do this: Put some of the best products of the land in your packs and carry them down as a gift for the man—a little balm and a little honey, spices and myrrh, pistachios and almonds.

“It is fine,” said the steward. “Do not be afraid. Your God, the God of your father, gave you the treasure that was in your sacks. I received your silver.” Then he brought Simeon out to them.

He asked if they were well, and then he asked, “How is your elderly father you told me about? Is he still alive?”

“Your servant our father is well,” they answered. “He is still alive.” And they bowed down to honor him.

But Joseph replied, “Far be it from me to do this. The man who was found with the cup will be my slave. The rest of you may return to your father in peace.”

My lord asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father or a brother?’

And we answered, ‘We have an elderly father and a younger brother, the child of his old age. The boy’s brother is dead. He is the only one of his mother’s sons left, and his father loves him.’

So we said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father. If he were to leave, his father would die.’

Now when we returned to your servant my father, we relayed your words to him.

Then our father said, ‘Go back and buy us some food.’

And your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons.

So if the boy is not with us when I return to your servant, and if my father, whose life is wrapped up in the boy’s life,

…sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. Then your servants will have brought the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow.

Indeed, your servant guaranteed the boy’s safety to my father, saying, ‘If I do not return him to you, I will bear the guilt before you, my father, all my life.’

For how can I go back to my father without the boy? I could not bear to see the misery that would overwhelm him.”

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?” But they were unable to answer him, because they were terrified in his presence.