Title page THE NEW
ENGLISH BIBLE
THE OLD TESTAMENT

Title page THE BIBLE
A NEW ENGLISH TRANSLATION Planned and Directed by Representatives of THE BAPTIST UNION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN ENGLAND AND WALES THE COUNCIL OF CHURCHES FOR WALES THE IRISH COUNCIL OF CHURCHES THE LONDON YEARLY MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS THE METHODIST CHURCH OF GREAT BRITAIN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF ENGLAND THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY THE NATIONAL BIBLE SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND

Title page THE NEW
ENGLISH BIBLE
THE OLD TESTAMENT OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1970

Title page THE DELEGATES OF THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
AND
THE SYNDICS OF THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1970 The New English Bible:
The Old Testament first published 1970 Printed in Great Britain
at the University Printing House, Cambridge
(Brooke Crutchley, University Printer)

PREFACE TO THE NEW ENGLISH BIBLE

In May 1946 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland received an overture from the Presbytery of Stirling and Dunblane, where it had been initiated by the Reverend G. S. Hendry, recommending that a translation of the Bible be made in the language of the present day, inasmuch as the language of the Authorized Version, already archaic when it was made, had now become even more definitely archaic and less generally understood. The General Assembly resolved to make an approach to other Churches, and, as a result, delegates of the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and the Methodist, Baptist, and Congregational Churches met in conference in October. They recommended that the work should be undertaken; that a completely new translation should be made, rather than a revision, such as had earlier been contemplated by the University Presses of Oxford and Cambridge; and that the translators should be free to employ a contemporary idiom rather than reproduce the traditional ‘biblical’ English.

In January 1947 a second conference, held like the first in the Central Hall, Westminster, included representatives of the University Presses. At the request of this conference, the Churches named above appointed representatives to form the Joint Committee on the New Translation of the Bible. This Committee met for the first time in July of the same year. By January 1948, when its third meeting was held, invitations to be represented had been sent to the Presbyterian Church of England, the Society of Friends, the Churches in Wales, the Churches in Ireland, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the National Bible Society of Scotland: these invitations were accepted. At a much later stage the hierarchies of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Scotland accepted an invitation to appoint representatives, and these attended as observers.

The Joint Committee provided for the actual work of translation from the original tongues by appointing three panels, to deal, respectively, with the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament. Their members were scholars drawn from various British universities, whom the Committee believed to be representative of competent biblical scholarship at the present time. Apprehending, however, that sound scholarship does not necessarily carry with it a delicate sense of English style, the Committee appointed a fourth panel, of trusted literary advisers, to whom all the work of the translating panels was to be submitted for scrutiny. It should be said that denominational considerations played no part in the appointment of the panels.

The Joint Committee issued general directions to the panels, in pursuance of the aims which the enterprise had in view. The translating panels adopted the following procedure. An individual was invited to submit a draft translation of a particular book, or group of books. Normally he would be a member of the panel concerned. Very occasionally a draft translation was invited from a scholar outside the panel, who was known to have worked specially on the book in question. The draft was circulated in typescript to members of the panel for their consideration. They then met together and discussed the draft round a table, verse by verse, sentence by sentence. Each member brought his view about the meaning of the original to the judgement of his fellows, and discussion went on until they reached a common mind. There are passages where, in the present state of our knowledge, no one could say with certainty which of two (or even more) possible meanings is intended. In such cases, after careful discussion, alternative meanings have been recorded in footnotes, but only where they seemed of sufficient importance. There is probably no member of a panel who has not found himself obliged to give up, perhaps with lingering regret, a cherished view about the meaning of this or that difficult passage, but in the end the panel accepted corporate responsibility for the interpretation set forth in the translation adopted.

The resultant draft was now remitted to the panel of literary advisers. They scrutinized it, once again, verse by verse, sentence by sentence, and took pains to secure, as best they could, the tone and level of language appropriate to the different kinds of writing to be found in the Bible, whether narrative, familiar discourse, argument, law, rhetoric or poetry. The translation thus amended was returned to the translating panel, who examined it to make sure that the meaning intended had not been in any way misunderstood. Passages of peculiar difficulty might on occasion pass repeatedly between the panels. The final form of the version was reached by agreement between the translators concerned and the literary advisers. It was then ready for submission to the Joint Committee.

Since January 1948 the Joint Committee has met regularly twice a year in the Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster Abbey, with four exceptions during 1954–5 when the Langham Room in the precincts of the Abbey was kindly made available. At these meetings the Committee has received reports on the progress of the work from the Conveners of the four panels, and its members have had in their hands typescripts of the books so far translated and revised. They have made such comments and given such advice or decisions as they judged to be necessary, and from time to time they have met members of the panels in conference.

Of the original members of the panels most have happily been able to stay

with the work all through, though some have been lost, through death or otherwise, and their places have been filled by fresh appointments.

The Committee has warmly appreciated the courteous hospitality of the Dean of Westminster and of the Trustees of the Central Hall. We owe a great debt to the support and the experienced counsel of the University Presses of Oxford and Cambridge. We recognize gratefully the service rendered to the enterprise by the Reverend Dr G. S. Hendry and the Reverend Professor J. K. S. Reid, who have successively held the office of Secretary to the Committee. To those who have borne special responsibility, as Chairmen of the Joint Committee, we owe more than could readily be told. Dr J. W. Hunkin, Bishop of Truro, our first Chairman, brought to the work an exuberant vigour and initiative without which the formidable project might hardly have got off the ground at all. On his lamented death in 1950 he was succeeded by Dr A. T. P. Williams, then Bishop of Durham and subsequently Bishop of Winchester, who for eighteen years guided our enterprise with judicious wisdom, tact, and benign firmness, but who to our sorrow died when the end of the task was in sight. To both of these we would put on record the gratitude of the Committee and of all engaged in the enterprise.

If we embarked on mentioning the names of those who have served on the various committees and panels, the list would be a long one; and if we mentioned some and not others, the selection would be an invidious one. There are, nevertheless, three names the omission of which would be utterly wrong. As Vice-Chairman and Director, Dr C. H. Dodd has from start to finish given outstanding leadership and guidance to the project, bringing to the work scholarship, sensitivity, and an ever watchful eye. Professor Sir Godfrey Driver, Joint Director since 1965, has also brought to the work a wealth of knowledge and wisdom; to his enthusiasm, tenacity of purpose, and unflagging devotion the whole enterprise is greatly indebted. Professor W. D. McHardy, Deputy Director since 1968, has made an invaluable contribution particularly, but by no means exclusively, in the sphere of the Apocrypha. It is right that the names of these three scholars should always be associated with The New English Bible. Our debt to them is incalculably great. DONALD EBOR: Chairman of the Joint Committee

CONTENTS

Preface to The New English Biblepage v Introduction to the Old Testamentxi Guide to the Notesxxi Marginal Numbersxxiv Genesis1 Exodus72 Leviticus129 Numbers172 Deuteronomy233 The Book of Joshua287 The Book of Judges321 Ruth356 The First Book of Samuel361 The Second Book of Samuel405 The First Book of Kings445 The Second Book of Kings489 The First Book of the Chronicles532 The Second Book of the Chronicles573 The Book of Ezra623 The Book of Nehemiah639 Esther660 The Book of Job671 Psalms728 Proverbs878 Ecclesiastes927 The Song of Songs938 The Book of the Prophet Isaiah949 The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah1059 Lamentations1161 The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel1175 The Book of Daniel1251

THE TWELVE PROPHETS Hosea1274 Joel1291 Amos1298 Obadiah1312 Jonah1314 Micah1317 Nahum1327 Habakkuk1332 Zephaniah1338 Haggai1344 Zechariah1347 Malachi1361 Appendix1365

INTRODUCTION

The Old Testament consists of a collection of works composed at various times from the twelfth to the second century B.C.; and much of it, e.g. genealogies, poems and stories, must have been handed down by word of mouth for many generations. It contains, however, scattered references to written texts; but how extensive or widely current these may have been cannot be said, as no manuscripts have survived from the period before the destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of the Jews into exile in 587/6 B.C. The text therefore is not infrequently uncertain and its meaning obscure.

The whole Old Testament is written in classical Hebrew, except some brief portions which are in the Aramaic language (Ezra 4. 8–6. 18 and 7. 12–26, Jeremiah 10. 11, Daniel 2. 4–7. 28), a sister language which became the lingua franca of the Semitic world.

The earliest surviving form of the Hebrew text is perhaps that found in the Samaritan Pentateuch (Genesis–Deuteronomy). This text must date from a period before the secession of the Samaritans from Judaism, but it is preserved only in manuscripts the earliest of which is tentatively assigned to the eleventh century A.D. It differs from the orthodox Jewish text in some six thousand places, in about one third of which it agrees with the Greek translation, the Septuagint; a few of these differences are doctrinal or political in origin (e.g. Deuteronomy 27. 4), a small number are helpful in difficult passages of the traditional Hebrew text, but the majority have little if any importance. The next witness to the Hebrew text is provided by the Scrolls from Qumrân, commonly called the Dead Sea Scrolls, dated c. 150 B.C. to A.D. 75 or thereabouts. These include fragments, often minute, of every book in the Old Testament except Esther, one complete scroll of Isaiah and another of which approximately half has been lost, and a commentary on the first two chapters of Habakkuk containing most of their text. All these agree essentially with the ‘received text’ of the Old Testament except for orthographic variations or occasional variant readings hardly affecting the sense, and so suggest that stabilization of text is already beginning. Fragments, however, of Samuel and one of Jeremiah have a shortened form of the text like that of the Septuagint in these books. The only other fragment of this period is that known as the Nash Papyrus, which cannot be exactly dated, containing two excerpts from the Law (Exodus 20.2–17 and Deuteronomy 6. 4–5); its chief interest is that the words are more or less clearly spaced.

Very few manuscripts are said to have survived the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Soon after that disaster, therefore, the Jewish religious leaders set about defining the canon and finally standardizing the text. This last process

went on for many centuries and resulted in the production of an eclectic text based on arbitrary rather than scientific principles. This was the Massoretic (so called from the Hebrew mass&obar;r&abar;h, ‘tradition’) or traditional text found in all Hebrew Bibles.

This text was written in a purely consonantal alphabet, although the scribes at Qumrân had already attempted to indicate the vowels by using certain letters for them (for example w for o and u, and y for e and i). This system, however, was soon found inadequate when, except in very restricted circles, the use of the old Hebrew language was dying out. Accordingly, in order to preserve the correct pronunciation in school and synagogue, the Massoretes inserted signs above or below or within the consonantal symbols to indicate this. Several systems are known, but that devised by the Rabbis of Tiberias (hence known as ‘Tiberian’) in the fifth to sixth centuries A.D. eventually prevailed. What they preserved, however, was not so much the original pronunciation as that current amongst themselves; further, however helpful these vowel-signs may have been, they are demonstrably not always correct. The present translators have therefore held themselves free to disregard the vowels and to re-vocalize the consonantal text wherever that seems desirable.

This text perpetuated not only genuine divergent readings but also numerous slips of the early copyists, made at a time when it was not copied with such meticulous care as in subsequent ages when it had come to be regarded as canonical and sacred; even then, however, many fresh errors found their way into it. The Rabbis soon felt the need to take account of and preserve any divergences that seemed to them important. They therefore listed a number of variant readings, omissions from and additions to the text as known to them, as well as possible corrections, which perhaps were often nothing but the conjectures of individual scribes. The consonants, however, were generally regarded as unalterable, and the usual method of indicating corrections adopted by the Massoretes was to attach the vowels of the word which they wished to be read to the consonants of that written in the text, although it might be an entirely different word.

One such substitution calls for special notice as affecting the divine name. This, written YHWH, was normally replaced by ‘God’ or ‘Lord’ as too sacred for common use (Exodus 20.7 and Leviticus 24. 16), being uttered only by the priest in the temple giving the priestly benediction (Numbers 6. 24–27). The true pronunciation was already passing into oblivion before A.D. 70; but Christian writers between A.D. 150 and A.D. 450 have Yaouai and Yab&ebar; (Yav&ebar;) in Greek characters, and early magical texts have Yhbyh (Yahv&ebar;h) in Aramaic characters, all pointing to Yahweh as the original pronunciation. The Massoretes, however, never vocalized the divine name as

Yahweh; instead, to the consonants YHWH they added the vowels of '&ashort;dôn&abar;y, ‘my Lord’ (replacing &ashort; by &eshort; as required by Hebrew phonetic laws), or of '&eshort;l&obar;hîm, ‘God’, thus warning the reader to use one or other of these words in place of the divine name; and the early translators generally substituted ‘Lord’ for it. The Massoretes, however, did not intend the vowels of either of these words to be attached to the consonants of the divine name as though it was Y&eshort;hôw&abar;h or Y&eshort;hôwîh, both grammatically impossible and meaningless forms; this uncouth combination, written Ie&obar;a in Greek letters in Hellenistic magical texts, did not become effective until Yehova or Jehova or Johova appeared in two Latin works dated in A.D. 1278 and A.D. 1303; the shortened Jova (declined like a Latin noun) came into use in the sixteenth century. The Reformers preferred Jehovah, which first appeared as Iehouah in A.D. 1530 in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (Exodus 6. 3), from which it passed into other Protestant Bibles. The present translators have retained the incorrect but now customary ‘Jehovah’ in the text of passages where it is explained in a note (Exodus 3.15 and 6. 3; cp. Genesis 4. 26) and in four place-names (Genesis 22. 14, Exodus 17. 15, Judges 6. 24, Ezekiel 48. 35); elsewhere they have put ‘Lord’ or ‘God’ in capital letters.

The Hebrew text as thus edited by the Massoretes became virtually a single recension probably remaining substantially unaltered from the second century A.D., but this text has not survived in any manuscripts dated before the ninth to eleventh centuries A.D. Unsatisfactory as it may be, however, it is perforce reproduced in all printed Hebrew Bibles. These began to appear late in the fifteenth century, when printed copies of single books or groups of books came from various presses, followed by the first complete Bibles in 1488 and 1491; but the text of Jacob ben Chayyim's Rabbinic Bible (Venice, 1524–5) is that found in most modern Bibles. Collections of various readings were published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, unfortunately taken from late manuscripts and therefore of relatively little value. The most-used modern edition, with selected variations from Hebrew manuscripts and the principal divergences in the ancient versions implying a different Hebrew text, together with emendations proposed by modern scholars, is the third edition of R. Kittel's Biblia Hebraica (Stuttgart, 1937). It is the basis of the present translation.

The Hebrew text as thus handed down is full of errors of every kind due to defective archetypes and successive copyists' errors, confusion of letters (of which several in the Hebrew alphabet are singularly alike), omissions and insertions, displacements of words and even of whole sentences or paragraphs; and copyists' unhappy attempts to rectify mistakes have often only increased the confusion.

The order of the books of the Old Testament followed in the present

translation, though not entirely the same as that found in Hebrew manuscripts and in the ancient versions, is that of the Authorized and Revised Versions.

In early inscriptions the writing commonly runs on continuously with no division between the words; but already c. 1000–700 B.C. some have points or vertical strokes to divide them. By the sixth century B.C. this use of points was becoming rare and words were being separated by spaces; and the reader was further assisted, when the Aramaic script replaced the old Phoenician script, by the peculiar forms of several letters used at the end of a word. The Greek translators of the Hebrew text, however, still divide words wrongly, and errors caused by such false divisions can be traced occasionally in Jerome's Latin translations and linger even in the Massoretic text, although words are properly divided in the Scrolls. The main Scroll of Isaiah, like the Nash Papyrus, occasionally separates verses by a space; but this process was not completed until the Massoretes introduced a vertical stroke, afterwards replaced by two points resembling a colon, to divide the verses. They also devised various systems of breaking up the text into paragraphs. Finally, the present division of the text into chapters, ascribed to Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, was adopted into Latin Bibles in the thirteenth century A.D.; their numbering is found in Hebrew manuscripts c. A.D. 1330 and in Hebrew Bibles first in the Complutensian Polyglot Bible (A.D. 1514–17).

The present translators have inserted their own headings, which are not found in the Hebrew text, to define longer sections; otherwise they have more or less accepted the paragraphing of the Authorized and Revised Versions without much regard to the Massoretic system; they have often, however, broken up the text into shorter sections than those of these two versions. They have adopted the Massoretic system of verses but have occasionally run two or three verses together in order to bring out the sense or to avoid a cumbrous or awkward sentence.

In the Hebrew text, headings are prefixed to many of the Psalms. Some are historical notices, obviously deduced from the text and often unsuitable; all are of doubtful value. Others are musical directions, which are found also in one other poem (Habakkuk 3. 1, 9, 13, 19); they are now for the most part unintelligible, and even the ancient translators seem to have been ignorant of their meaning. Further, the Syriac version has totally different headings throughout the Psalter. As such headings are almost certainly not original, they have been omitted from the present translation.

The treatment of verse raises special problems. Only three books were regarded by the Massoretes as poetry (Job, Psalms, Proverbs), and they have their own accentuation in the Hebrew text; this however does not always coincide with the obvious metre or rather rhythm of the poem, which is based on parallelism of thought between the two halves of the line and on the

number of units of sense, not of metrical feet of so many syllables, in each half. When these clash, the present translators have disregarded the Massoretic system and adapted the English text to rhythmical necessity. Further, the Massoretes have treated all the prophetic books as prose; but since the middle of the eighteenth century much in them has been recognized as verse, or prose mixed with verse, and the editors of these books in Kittel's Biblia Hebraica have printed whatever can be regarded as poetry in verse-form. The translators, therefore, have followed this system while using their own judgement in accepting or rejecting it in any given passage.

The verses in a few Psalms and in one or two poems outside the Psalter begin each with a successive letter of the alphabet; but no attempt has been made to reproduce such acrostic arrangements in this translation. They occasionally help to restore the order of the lines (Nahum 1. 2–14) and once to join two Psalms which have been wrongly separated (Psalms 9–10). In Psalm 119, each group of eight verses begins with the same letter, following the order of the alphabet, and Jerome has added the Hebrew names of the letters in Latin characters at the head of each group; but, as they are not in the Hebrew text, though preserved in the Authorized and Revised Versions, they have been here omitted.

Occasionally groups of verses are marked off by a common refrain; and this once or twice enables a displaced fragment of a poem to be restored to its proper position with the others sharing this refrain (Psalms 42–43 and Isaiah 5. 24–25 and 9. 8–10. 4).

Lastly, the Hebrew text of the Song of Songs does not differentiate between the speakers. They are distinguished, however, in two manuscripts of the Septuagint, though perhaps not always correctly, and can often be inferred from the gender and number of the persons addressed; they have therefore been added, according as they seem appropriate, in italic type in the present translation. Elsewhere the translators have here and there inserted the speaker's name when it has not been given for some time and have also occasionally added ‘he says’ or the like when the sense seems to be obscured by the absence of such indications.

Where the problem before the translators was that of correcting errors in the Hebrew text in order to make sense, they had recourse, first of all, to the ancient versions, of which a considerable number has survived.

The earliest version is the Greek translation made in Egypt in the third and second centuries B.C. It was designed to meet the needs of Greek-speaking Jews after the dispersion of the Jews following on the conquests of Alexander the Great (who died in 323 B.C.). According to tradition the Pentateuch was translated by seventy-two elders, six from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, and so the Greek version of the Old Testament came to be called the Septuagint,

from the Latin septuaginta, ‘seventy’. Written in the ‘common dialect’ of the Greek language current in the Mediterranean world, it is clearly the work of different translators of varying skill; for example, the Pentateuch is reasonably well translated, but the rest of the books, especially the poetical books, are often very poorly done and even contain sheer absurdities. Errors apart, this translation is now literal, now paraphrastic and now interpretative. Further, the underlying Hebrew text differed in many places from the Massoretic text; so, for example, the Septuagint represents a shortened form of the text of 1 and 2 Samuel and has the chapters of Jeremiah in an entirely different order. Yet, even though the Greek text itself is frequently corrupt, it is very often useful for recovering the original Hebrew text, if used with caution and skill. Early in the Christian era, when its defects were becoming increasingly apparent, several scholars attempted to revise it or make new recensions or translations based on it. Such were Aquila, whose renderings were often ludicrously literal, Symmachus, who replaced Hebraisms by idiomatic Greek expressions, and Theodotion, who made a free revision which was thought so good that his rendering of Daniel actually displaced that of the Septuagint. Some considerable time afterwards other scholars produced fresh recensions of the Greek text, amongst which that commonly associated with the name of Lucian may be included. Only fragments of the first three, apart from Theodotion's Daniel, have survived from the Hexaplar (i.e. six-columned) Bible made by Origen (c. A.D. 185–254), and Lucian's work is thought to lie behind certain Greek manuscripts. The history of these recensions is buried in obscurity; but most of them have something, however small, to contribute to the translation of the Hebrew Bible.

As Christianity spread westwards, the need of a Latin translation began to make itself felt, and the Old Latin Version, or perhaps rather Versions, came into existence, made from the Septuagint, about the end of the second century A.D. It is known partly from manuscripts, none complete, but mostly from quotations in the Fathers. The defects of this version, however, were so patent that Pope Damasus towards the end of the fourth century A.D. instructed Jerome to revise it. He began with two revisions of the Psalter, the ‘Roman Psalter’ based on the Old Latin Version, and the Gallican Psalter (so called as finding ready acceptance in Gaul) made from the Septuagint; he then produced Latin revisions of five other books (of which Job alone survives) based on the Septuagint, and finally new translations of the canonical books made from the Hebrew text, including one of the Psalms known as the ‘Psalter according to the Hebrews’, which failed to displace the Gallican Psalter in the Latin Bible. This version, made with the help of Jewish scholars and commonly called the Vulgate, by its idiomatic and forceful renderings was the best of the ancient translations; but, being

based on the Massoretic ‘received text’, it is not so useful as the Septuagint for the recovery of the original Hebrew.

As the classical language of the Old Testament ceased to be understood by the common people in Palestine, an interpreter followed up every verse of the Law and every three verses of the Prophets when read in the synagogue by an Aramaic translation which was often spun out into a long but edifying paraphrase. Such interpretations, known as Targums (so called from the Aramaic targûm, ‘translation’), tended to become traditional and had already begun to be written down before the Christian era; for Gamaliel, St Paul's teacher, ordered one of the Book of Job to be buried and his grandson declared such a work heretical. There are Targums to all the Old Testament books except Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah; and fourteen or fifteen such Targums are extant. Of these the most important are the so-called Targum of Onkelos on the Pentateuch and that of Jonathan on the Former and Latter Prophets, which are reasonably literal and therefore helpful in recovering the Hebrew text where it is corrupt.

The first Syriac version, called the Peshitta (meaning the ‘simple’, i.e. literal, version), was made for the Eastern Church between the first and third centuries A.D. Though affected by the Septuagint, it is basically a rendering of the Massoretic text and so occasionally elucidates difficult passages. The Syrohexaplar Version is a Syriac translation, made in the seventh century A.D., of Origen's text of the Septuagint as found in the fifth column of his Hexaplar Bible; its language so slavishly imitates the Greek of the parent text that it is invaluable, where it has been preserved, for restoring that text. Fragments of yet another Syriac version have been preserved, and the names of three others are known.

A number of other versions made between the third and ninth centuries A.D. in different languages are extant but, being made from or influenced by the Greek and Syriac versions, rarely help with problems of the Hebrew text. Several Arabic versions of diverse date, not all complete, exist, notably those of the Pentateuch, of which one lies behind the Samaritan Targum, and of a few books by Sa‘adyah (tenth century A.D.) and another of the Pentateuch by 'Abû Sa‘id (thirteenth century A.D.), which is the textus receptus of the Arabic Pentateuch now used by the Samaritans; the work of these two translators is from time to time helpful as embodying Jewish traditions.

These ancient versions, especially when they agree, contribute in varying degrees to the restoration of the Hebrew text when incapable of translation as it stands; and they also contribute much to the understanding of the Hebrew language. No Hebrew literature contemporary with the Old Testament is available to the Hebraist; only a few inscriptions carved in rock or

stone or daubed on potsherds have been preserved, and these throw but little light on the Hebrew language. Further, the range of subjects with which the Old Testament deals is limited, although it is spread over a period of some thousand years. Consequently its surviving vocabulary is small, numbering only about 7,500 different words, of which nearly a quarter occur only once each; and the meaning of many of these is quite unknown or can perhaps only be guessed from the context or learnt from the ancient translators if they have preserved it. The meaning, however, of not a few words is clearly unknown even to them.

Some of these rare words were explained, not always rightly, by medieval Jewish scholars from surviving traditions or by comparing them with cognate Arabic words. This last method was revived by Christian scholars in the seventeenth century and was greatly advanced during the following two centuries, when the Syriac and Ethiopic languages were also used; but the Babylonian and Assyrian languages did not become available till the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions in the middle of the nineteenth century. The authors of the Revised Version were able to make some use of these languages; but the huge accumulation of texts, including native glossaries, in them now provides a source on which the present translators have been able to draw for the explanation of many unknown or misunderstood Hebrew words and phrases.

The general understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures has also been greatly helped by archaeological discoveries made during the past century. These serve mostly to illustrate the setting of a particular passage or custom, but they occasionally throw light on a word of unknown meaning.

In the last resort the scholar may be driven to conjectural emendation of the Hebrew text. This is practised as sparingly as possible in the present translation, and attention is always (except where changes only in vocalization are involved) drawn to it in the notes.

Another difficulty in translating the Old Testament is one inherent in the circumstances of time and place. Long ago Erasmus remarked that the student of Scripture ought to be ‘tolerably versed in other branches of learning...and especially in knowledge of the natural objects—animals, trees, precious stones—of the countries mentioned in the Scriptures; for, if we are familiar with the country, we can in thought follow the history and picture it in our own minds, so that we seem not only to read it but to see it’. This goal indeed is not always easy to reach. Palestine differs greatly from the western world in its physical features and natural history, and the English language has no words for much that is characteristic of the country. The same problem arises with the arts and crafts, articles of clothing and vessels in daily use, the institutions of the family, administration and army, religion and cult. The translators, in

seeking a way round many such problems, have made every effort to avoid the introduction of anachronisms and words reflecting an entirely different social background. They have transliterated technical terms where strict accuracy seemed to be required, but rendered them by some word or phrase approaching or suggesting the original sense where this was not so. Notably the rendering of the terms for each kind of offering or sacrifice has been standardized in the laws, whereas they have been translated more freely, without much regard to consistency, in the Psalms and other poetical passages where no technical problems are involved.

The translators have resorted to a paraphrase when the original Hebrew word or phrase does not lend itself to literal reproduction; but they have generally given that in a note. They have also, on the one hand, here and there expanded a Hebrew idiom to avoid a Hebraism likely to be unintelligible to English readers, especially as Hebrew is able to express in three or four words what may require a dozen or so to make it intelligible in the English language; on the other hand, they have sometimes abbreviated the text when the original Hebrew has seemed by English standards unduly repetitive.

Hebrew writers are fond of playing on words, both common nouns and proper names; but no attempt has been made to reproduce such puns, if only because the result is generally something unnatural and bizarre. This problem is especially tantalizing in regard to proper names such as those of the patriarchs and the family of Naomi, all of whose characters are reflected in their names; such points can rarely be brought out in a foreign language, and the explanation of the names has been relegated to the notes.

Previous official translations of the Bible have been for the most part revisions of those that have preceded them. So the Authorized Version was practically a revision of Coverdale's work, and its language was largely that of the sixteenth rather than of the seventeenth century. The Revisers of the nineteenth century were instructed ‘to introduce as few alterations as possible into the Text of the Authorised Version’ and ‘to limit, as far as possible, the expression of such alterations to the language of the Authorised and earlier English Versions’. The obvious consequence of such instructions was that the language of the Revised Version tended to be several centuries out of date when it appeared; it even contained Latinisms which had come down from the Vulgate through a succession of English translations and which had long gone out of use. The present translators, therefore, were instructed to keep their language as close to current usage as they could, while avoiding expressions likely to be proved ephemeral. This task they have tried to perform to the best of their ability. They are well aware that a precise equivalent for a

Hebrew word can only rarely be found in another language, and that complete success in such an undertaking is unattainable; but they have had in mind not only the importance of making sense, which is not always apparent in previous translations, but also the needs of ordinary readers with no special knowledge of the ancient East; and they trust that such readers may find illumination in the present version. G.R.D.

GUIDE TO THE NOTES

The footnotes in this edition of the Old Testament serve (a) to give cross-references to parallel passages, chiefly in the historical books, (b) to indicate where verses or parts of verses have been transposed, (c) to give the meaning of proper names where it appears to be reflected in the context, (d) to give an alternative interpretation where the Hebrew is capable of such, (e) to draw attention to the literal meaning of the Hebrew where English idiom markedly differs, (f) to indicate where the reading of other Hebrew manuscripts, or of one or other of the versions, has been followed either in whole (e.g. ‘so Sept.’) or in part (e.g. ‘cp. Sept.’), and (g) to indicate places where the translators have adopted what seemed to them the most probable correction of the text where the Hebrew and the ancient versions cannot be convincingly translated as they stand.

Unless otherwise indicated by its wording, a note refers to the single word against which the reference is placed.

Abbreviations, etc., are given on pages xxii–xxiii.

ABBREVIATIONS, ETC. I ch(s).chapter(s) cp.compare lit.literally mng.meaning MS(S).manuscript(s), i.e. Hebrew manuscript(s), unless otherwise stated om.omit(s) orindicating an alternative interpretation poss.possible prob.probable rdg.reading II Aq.Aquila (Greek translator of the Old Testament) Aram.Aramaic (text or word) Heb.Hebrew (text or word) JosephusFlavius Josephus (A.D. 37/8–c. 100), author of the Jewish Archaeology, commonly called the Jewish Antiquities, published in A.D. 93/4. Luc. Sept.Lucian's recension of the Septuagint Pesh.Peshitta or Peshitto (Syriac version of the Old Testament) Sam.Samaritan Pentateuch Scroll(s)Scroll(s), commonly called the Dead Sea Scrolls, found at Qumrân Sept.Septuagint (Greek version of the Old Testament) Symm.Symmachus (Greek translator of the Old Testament) Targ.Targum (Aramaic version of the Old Testament) Theod.Theodotion (author of a revision of the Septuagint) Vulg.Vulgate (Latin version of the Old Testament) [...]In the text itself square brackets are used to indicate words that are probably late additions to the Hebrew text

III Books of the Old Testament Gen.Genesis Exod.Exodus Lev.Leviticus Num.Numbers Deut.Deuteronomy Josh.Joshua Judg.Judges RuthRuth 1 Sam.1 Samuel 2 Sam.2 Samuel 1 Kgs.1 Kings 2 Kgs.2 Kings 1 Chr.1 Chronicles 2 Chr.2 Chronicles EzraEzra Neh.Nehemiah EstherEsther JobJob Ps(s).Psalm(s) Prov.Proverbs Eccles.Ecclesiastes S. of S.Song of Songs Isa.Isaiah Jer.Jeremiah Lam.Lamentations Ezek.Ezekiel Dan.Daniel Hos.Hosea JoelJoel AmosAmos Obad.Obadiah JonahJonah Mic.Micah NahumNahum Hab.Habakkuk Zeph.Zephaniah Hag.Haggai Zech.Zechariah Mal.Malachi

MARGINAL NUMBERS

The conventional verse divisions in the Old Testament are based on those in Hebrew manuscripts. Nevertheless any system of division into numbered verses is foreign to the spirit of this translation, which is intended to convey the meaning in natural English—the prose in paragraphs, the poetic passages in lines corresponding to the structure of the Hebrew.

For purposes of reference, and of comparison with other translations, verse numbers are placed in the margin opposite the line in which the first word belonging to the verse in question appears. Sometimes, however, successive verses are combined in a continuous translation, so that the precise point where a new verse begins cannot be fixed; in these cases the verse numbers, joined by a hyphen, are placed at the point where the passage begins.

GENESIS The creation of the world

1   In the beginning of creation, when God made heaven and earth, ^note 2   the earth was without form and void, with darkness over the face of the abyss, and a mighty wind that swept ^note over the surface of the waters. 3   God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light; 4   and God saw that the light was good, and he separated light from darkness. 5   He called the light day, and the darkness night. So evening came, and morning came, the first day.

6   God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters, to separate water from water.’ 7   So God made the vault, and separated the water under the vault from the water above it, and so it was; 8   and God called the vault heaven. Evening came, and morning came, a second day.

9   God said, ‘Let the waters under heaven be gathered into one place, so that dry land may appear’; and so it was. 10   God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters he called seas; and God saw that it was good. 11   Then God said, ‘Let the earth produce fresh growth, let there be on the earth plants bearing seed, fruit-trees bearing fruit each with seed according to its kind.’ 12   So it was; the earth yielded fresh growth, plants bearing seed according to their kind and trees bearing fruit each with seed according to its kind; and God saw that it was good. 13   Evening came, and morning came, a third day.

14   God said, ‘Let there be lights in the vault of heaven to separate day from night, and let them serve as signs both for festivals and for seasons and years. 15   Let them also shine in the vault of heaven to give light on earth.’ 16   So it was; God made the two great lights, the greater to govern the day and the lesser to govern the night; and with them he made the stars. 17   God put these lights in the vault of heaven to give light on earth, to govern day and night, and to separate light from darkness; 18    and God saw that it was good. 19   Evening came, and morning came, a fourth day.

20   God said, ‘Let the waters teem with countless living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of heaven.’ 21   God then created the great sea-monsters and all living creatures that move and swarm in the waters, according to their kind, and every kind of bird;

The creation of the world and God saw that it was good. 22   So he blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and increase, fill the waters of the seas; and let the birds increase on land.’ 23   Evening came, and morning came, a fifth day.

24   God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures, according to their kind: cattle, reptiles, and wild animals, all according to their kind.’ 25   So it was; God made wild animals, cattle, and all reptiles, each according to its kind; and he saw that it was good. 26   Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness to rule the fish in the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all wild animals on earth, ^note and all reptiles that crawl upon the earth.’ 27   So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28   God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish in the sea, the birds of heaven, and every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ 29   God also said, ‘I give you all plants that bear seed everywhere on earth, and every tree bearing fruit which yields seed: they shall be yours for food. 30   All green plants I give for food to the wild animals, to all the birds of heaven, and to all reptiles on earth, every living creature.’ 31   So it was; and God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Evening came, and morning came, a sixth day.

1   Thus heaven and earth were completed with all their mighty throng. 2   On the sixth ^note day God completed all the work he had been doing, and on the seventh day he ceased from all his work. 3   God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day he ceased from all the work he had set himself ^note to do.

4   This is the story of the making of heaven and earth when they were created.

The beginnings of history

5   When the Lord God made earth and heaven, there was neither shrub nor plant growing wild upon the earth, because the Lord God had sent no rain on the earth; nor was there any man to till the ground. 6   A flood ^note used to rise out of the earth and water all the surface of the ground. 7   Then the Lord God formed a man ^note from the dust of the ground ^note and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. 8   Thus the man became a living creature. Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden away to the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9   The Lord God made trees spring from the ground, all trees pleasant to look at and good for food; and in the middle of the

The beginnings of history garden he set the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10   There was a river flowing from Eden to water the garden, and when it left the garden it branched into four streams. 11   The name of the first is Pishon; that is the river which encircles all the land of Havilah, where the gold ^note is. 12   The gold ^note of that land is good; bdellium ^note and cornelians are also to be found there. 13   The name of the second river is Gihon; this is the one which encircles all the land of Cush. 14   The name of the third is Tigris; this is the river which runs east of Asshur. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

15   The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and care for it. 16   He told the man, ‘You may eat from every tree in the garden, but not from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; 17    for on the day that you eat from it, you will certainly die.’ 18   Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will provide a partner for him.’ 19   So God formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of heaven. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20   Thus the man gave names to all cattle, to the birds of heaven, and to every wild animal; but for the man himself no partner had yet been found. 21   And so the Lord God put the man into a trance, and while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed the flesh over the place. 22   The Lord God then built up the rib, which he had taken out of the man, into a woman. 23   He brought her to the man, and the man said:

  ‘Now this, at last—
  bone from my bones,
  flesh from my flesh!—
  this shall be called woman, ^note
  for from man ^note was this taken.’

24   That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and the two become one flesh. 25   Now they were both naked, the man and his wife, but they had no feeling of shame towards one another.

1   The serpent was more crafty than any wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Is it true that God has forbidden you to eat from any tree in the garden?’ 2   The woman answered the serpent, 3   ‘We may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, except for the tree in the middle of the garden; God has forbidden us either to eat or to touch the fruit of that; if we do, we shall die.’ 4   The serpent said, ‘Of course you will not die. 5   God knows that as soon as you eat it, your

The beginnings of history eyes will be opened and you will be like gods ^note knowing both good and evil.’ 6   When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good to eat, and that it was pleasing to the eye and tempting to contemplate, she took some and ate it. She also gave her husband some and he ate it. 7   Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they discovered that they were naked; so they stitched fig-leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

8   The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze and hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9   But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ 10   He replied, ‘I heard the sound as you were walking in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.’ 11   God answered, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I forbade you?’ 12   The man said, ‘The woman you gave me for a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree and I ate it.’ 13   Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’ 14   Then the Lord God said to the serpent:

  ‘Because you have done this you are accursed
  more than all cattle and all wild creatures.
  On your belly you shall crawl, and dust you shall eat
  all the days of your life.
   15   I will put enmity between you and the woman,
  between your brood and hers.
  They shall strike at your head,
  and you shall strike at their heel.’

16   To the woman he said:

  ‘I will increase your labour and your groaning,
  and in labour you shall bear children.
  You shall be eager ^note for your husband,
  and he shall be your master.’

17   And to the man he said:

  ‘Because you have listened to your wife
  and have eaten from the tree which I forbade you,
  accursed shall be the ground on your account.
  With labour you shall win your food from it
  all the days of your life.
   18   It will grow thorns and thistles for you,
  none but wild plants for you to eat.

The beginnings of history
   19   You shall gain your bread by the sweat of your brow
  until you return to the ground;
  for from it you were taken.
  Dust you are, to dust you shall return.’

20   The man called his wife Eve ^note because she was the mother of all who live. 21   The Lord God made tunics of skins for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22   He said, ‘The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; what if he now reaches out his hand and takes fruit from the tree of life also, eats it and lives for ever?’ 23   So the Lord God drove him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he had been taken. 24   He cast him out, and to the east of the garden of Eden he stationed the cherubim and a sword whirling and flashing to guard the way to the tree of life.

1   The man lay with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. She said, ‘With the help of the Lord I have brought a man into being.’ 2   Afterwards she had another child, his brother Abel. Abel was a shepherd and Cain a tiller of the soil. 3   The day came when Cain brought some of the produce of the soil as a gift to the Lord; 4   and Abel brought some of the first-born of his flock, the fat portions of them. ^note 5   The Lord received Abel and his gift with favour; but Cain and his gift he did not receive. 6   Cain was very angry and his face fell. Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you so angry and cast down?

   7   If you do well, you are accepted; ^note
  if not, sin is a demon crouching at the door.
  It shall be eager for you, and you will be mastered by it.’ ^note

8   Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go into the open country.’ ^note While they were there, Cain attacked his brother Abel and murdered him. 9   Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ Cain answered, ‘I do not know. 10   Am I my brother's keeper?’ The Lord said, ‘What have you done? Hark! your brother's blood that has been shed is crying out to me from the ground. 11   Now you are accursed, and banished from ^note the ground which has opened its mouth wide to receive your brother's blood, which you have shed. 12   When you till the ground, it will no longer yield you its wealth. You shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on earth.’ 13   Cain said to the Lord, ‘My punishment is heavier than I can bear; 14   thou hast driven me today from the ground, and I must hide myself from thy presence. I shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on earth, and anyone who meets me can kill me.’ 15   The Lord answered him, ‘No: if anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged seven-fold.’

The beginnings of history So the Lord put a mark on Cain, in order that anyone meeting him should not kill him. 16   Then Cain went out from the Lord's presence and settled in the land of Nod ^{note note} to the east of Eden.

17   Then Cain lay with his wife; and she conceived and bore Enoch. Cain was then building a city, which he named Enoch after his son. 18   Enoch begot Irad; Irad begot Mehujael; Mehujael begot Methushael; Methushael begot Lamech.

19   Lamech married two wives, one named Adah and the other Zillah. 20   Adah bore Jabal who was the ancestor of herdsmen who live in tents; and his brother's name was Jubal; 21   he was the ancestor of those who play the harp and pipe. 22   Zillah, the other wife, bore Tubal-cain, the master of all coppersmiths and blacksmiths, and Tubal-cain's sister was Naamah. 23   Lamech said to his wives:

  ‘Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
  wives of Lamech, mark what I say:
  I kill a man for wounding me,
  a young man for a blow.
   24   Cain may be avenged seven times,
  but Lamech seventy-seven.’

25   Adam lay with his wife again. She bore a son, and named him Seth, ^note ‘for’, she said, ‘God has granted me another son in place of Abel, because Cain killed him.’ 26   Seth too had a son, whom he named Enosh. At that time men began to invoke the Lord ^note by name.

1   This is the record of the descendants of Adam. On the day when God created man he made him in the likeness of God. 2   He created them male and female, and on the day when he created them, he blessed them and called them man.

3   Adam was one hundred and thirty years old when he begot a son in his likeness and image, and named him Seth. 4   After the birth of Seth he lived eight hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. 5   He lived nine hundred and thirty years, and then he died.

6   Seth was one hundred and five years old when he begot Enosh. 7   After the birth of Enosh he lived eight hundred and seven years, and had other sons and daughters. 8   He lived nine hundred and twelve years, and then he died.

9    ^note 10   Enosh was ninety years old when he begot Kenan. After the birth of Kenan he lived eight hundred and fifteen years, and had other sons and daughters. 11   He lived nine hundred and five years, and then he died.

The beginnings of history

12    13   Kenan was seventy years old when he begot Mahalalel. After the birth of Mahalalel he lived eight hundred and forty years, and had other sons and daughters. 14   He lived nine hundred and ten years, and then he died.

15    16   Mahalalel was sixty-five years old when he begot Jared. After the birth of Jared he lived eight hundred and thirty years, and had other sons and daughters. 17   He lived eight hundred and ninety-five years, and then he died.

18   Jared was one hundred and sixty-two years old when he begot Enoch. 19   After the birth of Enoch he lived eight hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. 20   He lived nine hundred and sixty-two years, and then he died.

21    22   Enoch was sixty-five years old when he begot Methuselah. After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God for three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. 23   He lived three hundred and sixty-five years. 24   Having walked with God, Enoch was seen no more, because God had taken him away.

25   Methuselah was one hundred and eighty-seven years old when he begot Lamech. 26   After the birth of Lamech he lived for seven hundred and eighty-two years, and had other sons and daughters. 27   He lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and then he died.

28   Lamech was one hundred and eighty-two years old when he begot a son. 29   He named him Noah, saying, ‘This boy will bring us relief from our work, and from the hard labour that has come upon us because of the Lord's curse upon the ground.’ 30   After the birth of Noah, he lived for five hundred and ninety-five years, and had other sons and daughters. 31   Lamech lived seven hundred and seventy-seven years, and then he died. 32   Noah was five hundred years old when he begot Shem, Ham and Japheth. The flood and the tower of Babel

1   When mankind began to increase and to spread all over the earth and daughters were born to them, 2   the sons of the gods saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; so they took for themselves such women as they chose. 3   But the Lord said, ‘My life-giving spirit shall not remain in man for ever; he for his part is mortal flesh: he shall live for a hundred and twenty years.’

4   In those days, ^note when the sons of the gods had intercourse with the daughters of men and got children by them, the Nephilim ^note were on earth. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

The flood and the tower of Babel

5   When the Lord saw that man had done much evil on earth and that his thoughts and inclinations were always evil, 6   he was sorry that he had made man on earth, and he was grieved at heart. 7   He said, ‘This race of men whom I have created, I will wipe them off the face of the earth—man and beast, reptiles and birds. I am sorry that I ever made them.’ 8   But Noah had won the Lord's favour.

9   This is the story of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, the one blameless man of his time; he walked with God. 10   He had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. 11   Now God saw that the whole world was corrupt ^note and full of violence. 12   In his sight the world had become corrupted, for all men had lived corrupt lives on earth. 13   God said to Noah, ‘The loathsomeness ^note of all mankind has become plain to me, for through them the earth is full of violence. 14   I intend to destroy them, and the earth with them. Make yourself an ark with ribs of cypress; cover it with reeds and coat it inside and out with pitch. 15   This is to be its plan: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. 16   You shall make a roof for the ark, giving it a fall of one cubit when complete; and put a door in the side of the ark, and build three decks, upper, middle, and lower. 17   I intend to bring the waters of the flood over the earth to destroy every human being under heaven that has the spirit of life; everything on earth shall perish. 18   But with you I will make a covenant, and you shall go into the ark, you and your sons, your wife and your sons' wives with you. 19   And you shall bring living creatures of every kind into the ark to keep them alive with you, two of each kind, a male and a female; 20   two of every kind of bird, beast, and reptile, shall come to you to be kept alive. 21   See that you take and store every kind of food that can be eaten; this shall be food for you and for them.’ 22   Exactly as God had commanded him, so Noah did.

1   The Lord said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and all your household; for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation. 2   Take with you seven pairs, male and female, of all beasts that are ritually clean, and one pair, male and female, of all beasts that are not clean; 3   also seven pairs, male and female, of every bird—to ensure that life continues on earth. 4   In seven days' time I will send rain over the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe off the face of the earth every living thing that I have made.’ 5   Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. 6   He was six hundred years old when the waters of the flood came upon the earth.

7   And so, to escape the waters of the flood, Noah went into the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives. 8    9   And into the ark with Noah went one pair, male and female, of all beasts, clean and unclean, of birds and of everything that crawls on the ground, two by two, as God had

The flood and the tower of Babel commanded. 10   Towards the end of seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. 11   In the year when Noah was six hundred years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, on that very day, all the springs of the great abyss broke through, the windows of the sky were opened, 12   and rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights. 13   On that very day Noah entered the ark with his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, his own wife, and his three sons' wives. ^note 14   Wild animals of every kind, cattle of every kind, reptiles of every kind that move upon the ground, 15   and birds of every kind ^note—all came to Noah in the ark, two by two of all creatures that had life ^note in them. 16   Those which came were one male and one female of all living things; they came in as God had commanded Noah, and the Lord closed the door on him. 17   The flood continued upon the earth for forty days, and the waters swelled and lifted up the ark so that it rose high above the ground. 18   They swelled and increased over the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters. 19   More and more the waters increased over the earth until they covered all the high mountains everywhere under heaven. 20   The waters increased and the mountains were covered to a depth of fifteen cubits. 21   Every living creature that moves on earth perished, birds, cattle, wild animals, all reptiles, and all mankind. 22   Everything died that had the breath of life ^note in its nostrils, everything on dry land. 23   God wiped out every living thing that existed on earth, man and beast, reptile and bird; they were all wiped out over the whole earth, and only Noah and his company in the ark survived.

24   When the waters had increased over the earth for a hundred and fifty days,

1   God thought of Noah and all the wild animals and the cattle with him in the ark, and he made a wind pass over the earth, and the waters began to subside. 2   The springs of the abyss were stopped up, and so were the windows of the sky; the downpour from the skies was checked. 3   The water gradually receded from the earth, and by the end of a hundred and fifty days it had disappeared. 4   On the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark grounded on a mountain in Ararat. 5   The water continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains could be seen.

6   After forty days Noah opened the trap-door that he had made in the ark, 7   and released a raven to see whether the water had subsided, ^note but the bird continued flying to and fro until the water on the earth had dried up. 8   Noah waited for seven days, ^note and then he released a dove from the ark to see whether the water on the earth had subsided further. 9   But the dove found no place where she could settle, and so she came back

The flood and the tower of Babel to him in the ark, because there was water over the whole surface of the earth. Noah stretched out his hand, caught her and took her into the ark. 10   He waited another seven days and again released the dove from the ark. 11   She came back to him towards evening with a newly plucked olive leaf in her beak. Then Noah knew for certain that the water on the earth had subsided still further. 12   He waited yet another seven days and released the dove, but she never came back. 13   And so it came about that, on the first day of the first month of his six hundred and first year, the water had dried up on the earth, and Noah removed the hatch and looked out of the ark. The surface of the ground was dry.

14   By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the whole earth was dry. 15    16   And God said to Noah, ‘Come out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons and their wives. 17   Bring out every living creature that is with you, live things of every kind, bird and beast and every reptile that moves on the ground, and let them swarm over the earth and be fruitful and increase there.’ 18   So Noah came out with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives. 19   Every wild animal, all cattle, every bird, and every reptile that moves on the ground, ^note came out of the ark by families. 20   Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took ritually clean beasts and birds of every kind, and offered whole-offerings on the altar. 21   When the Lord smelt the soothing odour, he said within himself, ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of man, however evil his inclinations may be from his youth upwards. I will never again kill every living creature, as I have just done.

   22   While the earth lasts
  seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
  summer and winter, day and night,
  shall never cease.’

1   God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase, and fill the earth. 2   The fear and dread of you shall fall upon all wild animals on earth, on all birds of heaven, on everything that moves upon the ground and all fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. 3   Every creature that lives and moves shall be food for you; I give you them all, as once I gave you all green plants. 4   But you must not eat the flesh with the life, which is the blood, still in it. 5   And further, for your life-blood I will demand satisfaction; from every animal I will require it, and from a man also I will require satisfaction for the death of his fellow-man.

The flood and the tower of Babel

   6   He that sheds the blood of a man,
  for that man his blood shall be shed;
  for in the image of God
  has God made man.

7   But you must be fruitful and increase, swarm throughout the earth and rule ^note over it.’

8    9   God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him: ‘I now make my covenant with you and with your descendants after you, 10   and with every living creature that is with you, all birds and cattle, all the wild animals with you on earth, all that have come out of the ark. ^note 11   I will make my covenant with you: never again shall all living creatures be destroyed by the waters of the flood, never again shall there be a flood to lay waste the earth.’

12   God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I establish between myself and you and every living creature with you, to endless generations:

   13   My bow I set in the cloud,
  sign of the covenant
  between myself and earth.
   14   When I cloud the sky over the earth,
  the bow shall be seen in the cloud.

15   Then will I remember the covenant which I have made between myself and you and living things of every kind. Never again shall the waters become a flood to destroy all living creatures. 16   The bow shall be in the cloud; when I see it, it will remind me of the everlasting covenant between God and living things on earth of every kind.’ 17   God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I make between myself and all that lives on earth.’

18   The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth; Ham was the father of Canaan. 19   These three were the sons of Noah, and their descendants spread over the whole earth.

20    21   Noah, a man of the soil, began the planting of vineyards. He drank some of the wine, became drunk and lay naked inside his tent. 22   When Ham, father of Canaan, saw his father naked, he told his two brothers outside. 23   So Shem and Japheth took a cloak, put it on their shoulders and walked backwards, and so covered their father's naked body; their faces were turned the other way, so that they did not see their father naked. 24   When Noah woke from his drunken sleep, he learnt what his youngest son had done to him, 25   and said:

  ‘Cursed be Canaan,
  slave of slaves
  shall he be to his brothers.’

The flood and the tower of Babel

26   And he continued:

  ‘Bless, O Lord,
  the tents of Shem; ^note
  may Canaan be his slave.
   27   May God extend ^note Japheth's bounds,
  let him dwell in the tents of Shem,
  may Canaan be their slave.’

28    29   After the flood Noah lived for three hundred and fifty years, and he was nine hundred and fifty years old when he died.

1   These are the descendants of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth, the sons born to them after the flood.

2    ^noteThe sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, ^note Tubal, Meshech and Tiras. 3   The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah. 4   The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim ^note and Rodanim. ^note 5   From these the peoples of the coasts and islands separated into their own countries, each with their own language, family by family, nation by nation.

6    ^note 7   The sons of Ham: Cush, Mizraim, ^note Put and Canaan. The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabtecha. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 8   Cush was the father of Nimrod, who began to show himself a man of might on earth; 9   and he was a mighty hunter before the Lord, as the saying goes, ‘Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.’ 10   His kingdom in the beginning consisted of Babel, 11   Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar. 12   From that land he migrated to Asshur and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen, a great city between Nineveh and Calah. 13    ^noteFrom Mizraim sprang the Lydians, 14   Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, Pathrusites, Casluhites, and the Caphtorites, ^note from whom the Philistines were descended.

15   Canaan was the father of Sidon, who was his eldest son, and Heth, ^note the Jebusites, 16    17   the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. 18   Later the Canaanites spread, 19   and then the Canaanite border ran from Sidon towards Gerar all the way to Gaza; then all the way to Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim as far as Lasha. 20   These were the sons of Ham, by families and languages with their countries and nations.

21   Sons were born also to Shem, elder brother of Japheth, the ancestor of all the sons of Eber. 22    ^noteThe sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud ^note and Aram. 23   The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether and Mash.

The flood and the tower of Babel Arphaxad was the father of Shelah, and Shelah the father of Eber. 24   Eber had two sons: one was named Peleg, ^note because in his time the earth was divided; 25   and his brother's name was Joktan. 26   Joktan was the father of Almodad, 27   Sheleph, Hazarmoth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. 28    29   All these were sons of Joktan. 30   They lived in the eastern hill-country, from Mesha all the way to Sephar. 31   These were the sons of Shem, by families and languages with their countries and nations.

32   These were the families of the sons of Noah according to their genealogies, nation by nation; and from them came the separate nations on earth after the flood.

1   Once upon a time all the world spoke a single language and used the same ^note words. 2   As men journeyed in the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3   They said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and bake them hard’; they used bricks for stone and bitumen for mortar. 4   ‘Come,’ they said, ‘let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and make a name for ourselves; or we shall be dispersed all over the earth.’ 5   Then the Lord came down to see the city and tower which mortal men had built, 6   and he said, ‘Here they are, one people with a single language, and now they have started to do this; henceforward nothing they have a mind to do will be beyond their reach. 7   Come, let us go down there and confuse their speech, so that they will not understand what they say to one another.’ 8   So the Lord dispersed them from there all over the earth, and they left off building the city. 9   That is why it is called Babel, ^note because the Lord there made a babble of the language of all the world; from that place the Lord scattered men all over the face of the earth.

10    ^noteThis is the table of the descendants of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old when he begot Arphaxad, two years after the flood. 11   After the birth of Arphaxad he lived five hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. 12   Arphaxad was thirty-five years old when he begot Shelah. 13   After the birth of Shelah he lived four hundred and three years, and had other sons and daughters.

14    15   Shelah was thirty years old when he begot Eber. After the birth of Eber he lived four hundred and three years, and had other sons and daughters.

16    17   Eber was thirty-four years old when he begot Peleg. After the birth of Peleg he lived four hundred and thirty years, and had other sons and daughters.

18    19   Peleg was thirty years old when he begot Reu. After the birth of Reu he lived two hundred and nine years, and had other sons and daughters.

The flood and the tower of Babel

20    21   Reu was thirty-two years old when he begot Serug. After the birth of Serug he lived two hundred and seven years, and had other sons and daughters.

22    23   Serug was thirty years old when he begot Nahor. After the birth of Nahor he lived two hundred years, and had other sons and daughters.

24    25   Nahor was twenty-nine years old when he begot Terah. After the birth of Terah he lived a hundred and nineteen years, and had other sons and daughters.

26   Terah was seventy years old when he begot Abram, Nahor and Haran.

27   This is the table of the descendants of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. 28   Haran was the father of Lot. Haran died in the presence of his father in the land of his birth, Ur of the Chaldees. 29   Abram and Nahor married wives; Abram's wife was called Sarai, and Nahor's Milcah. She was Haran's daughter; and he was also the father of Milcah and of Iscah. 30    31   Sarai was barren; she had no child. Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai Abram's wife, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldees for the land of Canaan. But when they reached Harran, they settled there. 32   Terah was two hundred and five ^note years old when he died in Harran. Abraham and Isaac

1   The Lord said to Abram, ‘Leave your own country, your kinsmen, and your father's house, and go to a country that I will show you. 2   I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you and make your name so great that it shall be used in blessings:

   3   Those that bless you I will bless,
  those that curse you, I will execrate.
  All the families on earth
  will pray to be blessed as you are blessed.’

4   And so Abram set out as the Lord had bidden him, and Lot went with him. 5   Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Harran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the property they had collected, and all the dependants they had acquired in Harran, and they started on their journey to Canaan. 6   When they arrived, Abram passed through the country to the sanctuary at Shechem, the terebinth-tree of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites lived in this land. 7   There the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘I give this land to your descendants.’ So Abram built

Abraham and Isaac an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. 8   Thence he went on to the hill-country east of Bethel and pitched his tent between Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the Lord by name. 9   Thus Abram journeyed by stages towards the Negeb.

10   There came a famine in the land, so severe that Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while. 11   When he was approaching Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, ‘I know very well that you are a beautiful woman, and that when the Egyptians see you, they will say, “She is his wife”; 12    then they will kill me but let you live. 13   Tell them that you are my sister, so that all may go well with me because of you and my life may be spared on your account.’ 14   When Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians saw that she was indeed very beautiful. 15   Pharaoh's courtiers saw her and praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into Pharaoh's household. 16   He treated Abram well because of her, and Abram came to possess sheep and cattle and asses, male and female slaves, she-asses, and camels. 17   But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his household with grave diseases on account of Abram's wife Sarai. 18   Pharaoh summoned Abram and said to him, ‘Why have you treated me like this? Why did you not tell me that she is your wife? 19   Why did you say that she was your sister, so that I took her as a wife? 20   Here she is: take her and be gone.’ Then Pharaoh gave his men orders, and they sent Abram away with his wife and all that he had.

1   Abram went up from Egypt into the Negeb, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot went with him. 2   Abram was now very rich in cattle and in silver and gold. 3   From the Negeb he journeyed by stages to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where he had pitched his tent in the beginning, 4   where he had set up an altar on the first occasion and had invoked the Lord by name. 5   Now Lot was travelling with Abram, and he too possessed sheep and cattle and tents. 6   The land could not support them both together; for their livestock were so numerous that they could not settle in the same district, 7   and there were quarrels between Abram's herdsmen and Lot's. The Canaanites and the Perizzites were then living in the land. 8   So Abram said to Lot, ‘Let there be no quarrelling between us, between my herdsmen and yours; for we are close kinsmen. 9   The whole country is there in front of you; let us part company. If you go left, I will go right; if you go right, I will go left.’ 10   Lot looked up and saw how well-watered the whole Plain of the Jordan was; all the way to Zoar it was like the Garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. This was before the Lord had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. 11   So Lot chose all the Plain of the Jordan and took the road on the east side. 12   Thus they parted company. Abram settled in the land of Canaan; but Lot settled among the cities of the Plain and

Abraham and Isaac pitched his tents near Sodom. 13   Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.

14   After Lot and Abram had parted, the Lord said to Abram, ‘Raise your eyes and look into the distance from the place where you are, north and south, east and west. 15   All the land you can see I will give to you and to your descendants for ever. 16   I will make your descendants countless as the dust of the earth; if anyone could count the dust upon the ground, then he could count your descendants. 17   Now go through the length and breadth of the land, for I give it to you.’ 18   So Abram moved his tent and settled by the terebinths of Mamre at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the Lord.

1   It was in the time of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goyim. 2   They went to war against Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboyim, and the king of Bela, that is Zoar. 3   These kings joined forces in the valley of Siddim, which is now the Dead Sea. 4   They had been subject to Kedorlaomer for twelve years, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled. 5   Then in the fourteenth year Kedorlaomer and his confederate kings came and defeated the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim, 6   and the Horites in the hill-country from Seir ^note as far as El-paran on the edge of the wilderness. 7   On their way back they came to En-mishpat, which is now Kadesh, and laid waste all the country of the Amalekites and also that of the Amorites who lived in Hazazon-tamar. 8   Then the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboyim, and Bela, which is now Zoar, marched out and drew up their forces against them in the valley of Siddim, 9   against Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goyim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar, four kings against five. 10   Now the valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits; and when the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell into them, but the rest escaped to the hill-country. 11   The four kings captured all the flocks and herds of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their provisions, and went away. 12   They also carried off Lot, Abram's nephew, who was living in Sodom, and with him his flocks and herds. 13   But a fugitive came and told Abram the Hebrew, who at that time was dwelling by the terebinths of Mamre the Amorite. This Mamre was the brother of Eshcol and Aner, who were allies of Abram. 14   When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken prisoner, he mustered ^note his retainers, men born in his household, three hundred and eighteen of them, and pursued as far as Dan. 15   Abram and his followers surrounded the enemy by night, attacked them and pursued

Abraham and Isaac them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus; 16   he then brought back all the flocks and herds and also his kinsman Lot with his flocks and herds, together with the women and the other captives. ^note 17   On his return from this defeat of Kedorlaomer and his confederate kings, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the valley of Shaveh, which is now the King's Valley.

18   Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought food and wine. He was priest of God Most High, ^note 19   and he pronounced this blessing on Abram:

  ‘Blessed be Abram
  by God Most High,
  creator ^note of heaven and earth.
   20   And blessed be God Most High,
  who has delivered your enemies into your power.’

Abram gave him a tithe of all the booty.

21   The king of Sodom said to Abram, ‘Give me the people, and you can take the property’; 22   but Abram said to the king of Sodom, ‘I lift my hand and swear by the Lord, God Most High, creator of heaven and earth: 23   not a thread or a shoe-string will I accept of anything that is yours. 24   You shall never say, “I made Abram rich.” I will accept nothing but what the young men have eaten and the share of the men who went with me. Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre shall have their share.’

1   After this the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. He said, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram, I am giving you a very great reward.’ ^note 2   Abram replied, ‘Lord God, what canst thou give me? I have no standing among men, for the heir to ^note my household is Eliezer of Damascus.’ 3   Abram continued, ‘Thou hast given me no children, and so my heir must be a slave born in my house.’ 4   Then came the word of the Lord to him: ‘This man shall not be your heir; your heir shall be a child of your own body.’ 5   He took Abram outside and said, ‘Look up into the sky, and count the stars if you can. So many’, he said, ‘shall your descendants be.’

6   Abram put his faith in the Lord, and the Lord counted that faith to him as righteousness; 7   he said to him, ‘I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldees to give you this land to occupy.’ 8   Abram said, ‘O Lord God, how can I be sure that I shall occupy it?’ 9   The Lord answered, ‘Bring me a heifer three years old, a she-goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle-dove, and a fledgling.’ 10   He brought him all these, halved the animals down the middle and placed each piece opposite its corresponding piece, but he did not halve

Abraham and Isaac the birds. 11   When the birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, Abram scared them away. 12   Then, as the sun was going down, a trance came over Abram and great fear ^note came upon him. 13   The Lord said to Abram, ‘Know this for certain, that your descendants will be aliens living in a land that is not theirs; they will be slaves, and will be held in oppression there for four hundred years. 14   But I will punish that nation whose slaves they are, and after that they shall come out with great possessions. 15   You yourself shall join your fathers in peace and be buried in a good old age; 16   and the fourth generation shall return here, for the Amorites will not be ripe for punishment till then.’ 17   The sun went down and it was dusk, and there appeared a smoking brazier and a flaming torch passing between the divided pieces. 18   That very day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, and he said, ‘To your descendants I give this land from the River of Egypt to the Great River, the river Euphrates, the territory of the Kenites, 19    20   Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, 21   Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, Hivites, ^note and Jebusites.’

1   Abram's wife Sarai had borne him no children. Now she had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar, 2   and she said to Abram, ‘You see that the Lord has not allowed me to bear a child. Take my slave-girl; perhaps I shall found a family through her.’ Abram agreed to what his wife said; 3   so Sarai, Abram's wife, brought her slave-girl, Hagar the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. ^note 4   When this happened Abram had been in Canaan for ten years. He lay with Hagar and she conceived; and when she knew that she was with child, she despised her mistress. 5   Sarai said to Abram, ‘I have been wronged and you must answer for it. It was I who gave my slave-girl into your arms, but since she has known that she is with child, she has despised me. May the Lord see justice done between you and me.’ 6   Abram replied to Sarai, ‘Your slave-girl is in your hands; deal with her as you will.’ So Sarai ill-treated her and she ran away.

7   The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness on the way to Shur, 8   and he said, ‘Hagar, Sarai's slave-girl, where have you come from and where are you going?’ She answered, ‘I am running away from Sarai my mistress.’ 9   The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Go back to your mistress and submit to her ill-treatment.’ 10   The angel also said, ‘I will make your descendants too many to be counted.’ 11   And the angel of the Lord said to her:

  ‘You are with child and will bear a son.
  You shall name him Ishmael, ^note
  because the Lord has heard of your ill-treatment.

Abraham and Isaac
   12   He shall be a man like the wild ass,
  his hand against every man
  and every man's hand against him;
  and he shall live at odds with ^note all his kinsmen.’

13   She called the Lord who was speaking to her by the name El-Roi, ^note for she said, ‘Have I indeed seen God and still live ^note after that vision?’ 14   That is why men call the well Beer-lahai-roi; ^note it lies between Kadesh and Bered. 15   Hagar bore Abram a son, and he named the child she bore him Ishmael. 16   Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael.

1   When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty. ^noteLive always in my presence and be perfect, 2   so that I may set my covenant between myself and you and multiply your descendants.’ 3   Abram threw himself down on his face, and God spoke with him and said, 4   ‘I make this covenant, and I make it with you: you shall be the father of a host of nations. 5   Your name shall no longer be Abram, ^note your name shall be Abraham, ^note for I make you father of a host of nations. 6   I will make you exceedingly fruitful; I will make nations out of you, and kings shall spring from you. 7   I will fulfil my covenant between myself and you and your descendants after you, generation after generation, an everlasting covenant, to be your God, yours and your descendants' after you. 8   As an everlasting possession I will give you and your descendants after you the land in which you now are aliens, all the land of Canaan, and I will be God to your descendants.’

9   God said to Abraham, ‘For your part, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you, generation by generation. 10   This is how you shall keep my covenant between myself and you and your descendants after you: circumcise yourselves, every male among you. 11   You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between us. 12   Every male among you in every generation shall be circumcised on the eighth day, both those born in your house and any foreigner, not of your blood but bought with your money. 13   Circumcise both those born in your house and those bought with your money; thus shall my covenant be marked in your flesh as an everlasting covenant. 14   Every uncircumcised male, everyone who has not had the flesh of his foreskin circumcised, shall be cut off from the kin of his father. He has broken my covenant.’

15   God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife; you shall call her not Sarai, ^note but Sarah. ^note 16   I will bless her and give you a son by her. I will

Abraham and Isaac bless her and she shall be the mother of nations; the kings of many people shall spring from her.’ 17   Abraham threw himself down on his face; he laughed and said to himself, ‘Can a son be born to a man who is a hundred years old? 18   Can Sarah bear a son when she is ninety?’ He said to God, ‘If only Ishmael might live under thy special care!’ 19   But God replied, ‘No. Your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall call him Isaac. ^noteWith him I will fulfil my covenant, an everlasting covenant with his descendants after him. 20   I have heard your prayer for Ishmael. I have blessed him and will make him fruitful. I will multiply his descendants; he shall be father of twelve princes, and I will raise a great nation from him. 21   But my covenant I will fulfil with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year.’ 22   When he had finished talking with Abraham, God ascended and left him.

23   Then Abraham took Ishmael his son, everyone who had been born in his household and everyone bought with money, every male in his household, and he circumcised them that very same day in the flesh of their foreskins as God had told him to do. 24   Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he circumcised the flesh of his foreskin. 25   Ishmael was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 26    27   Both Abraham and Ishmael were circumcised on the same day, and all the men of his household, born in the house or bought with money from foreigners, were circumcised with him.

1   The Lord appeared to Abraham by the terebinths of Mamre. As Abraham was sitting at the opening of his tent in the heat of the day, he looked up and saw three men standing in front of him. 2   When he saw them, he ran from the opening of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. 3   ‘Sirs,’ he said, ‘if I have deserved your favour, do not pass by my humble self without a visit. 4   Let me send for some water so that you may wash your feet and rest under a tree; 5   and let me fetch a little food so that you may refresh yourselves. Afterwards you may continue the journey which has brought you my way.’ They said, ‘Do by all means as you say.’ 6   So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, ‘Take three measures of flour quickly, knead it and make some cakes.’ 7   Then Abraham ran to the cattle, chose a fine tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurriedly prepared it. 8   He took curds and milk and the calf he had prepared, set it before them, and waited on them himself under the tree while they ate. 9   They asked him where Sarah his wife was, and he said, ‘There, in the tent.’ 10   The stranger said, ‘About this time next year I will be sure to come back to you, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.’ Now Sarah was listening at the opening of the tent, and he was close beside it. 11   Both Abraham and Sarah had grown

Abraham and Isaac very old, and Sarah was past the age of child-bearing. 12   So Sarah laughed to herself and said, ‘I am past bearing children now that I am out of my time, and my husband is old.’ 13   The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh and say, “Shall I indeed bear a child when I am old?” 14   Is anything impossible for the Lord? In due season I will come back to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.’ 15   Sarah lied because she was frightened, and denied that she had laughed; but he said, ‘Yes, you did laugh.’

16   The men set out and looked down towards Sodom, and Abraham went with them to start them on their way. 17   The Lord thought to himself, ‘Shall I conceal from Abraham what I intend to do? 18   He will become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will pray to be blessed as he is blessed. 19   I have taken care of him on purpose that he may charge his sons and family after him to conform to the way of the Lord and to do what is right and just; thus I shall fulfil all that I have promised for him.’ 20   So the Lord said, ‘There is a great outcry over Sodom and Gomorrah; their sin is very grave. 21   I must go down and see whether their deeds warrant the outcry which has reached me. I am resolved to know the truth.’ 22   When the men turned and went towards Sodom, Abraham remained standing before the Lord. 23   Abraham drew near him and said, ‘Wilt thou really sweep away good and bad together? 24   Suppose there are fifty good men in the city; wilt thou really sweep it away, and not pardon the place because of the fifty good men? 25   Far be it from thee to do this—to kill good and bad together; for then the good would suffer with the bad. Far be it from thee. Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?’ 26   The Lord said, ‘If I find in the city of Sodom fifty good men, I will pardon the whole place for their sake.’ 27   Abraham replied, ‘May I presume to speak to the Lord, dust and ashes that I am: suppose there are five short of the fifty good men? 28   Wilt thou destroy the whole city for a mere five men?’ He said, ‘If I find forty-five there I will not destroy it.’ 29   Abraham spoke again, ‘Suppose forty can be found there?’; and he said, ‘For the sake of the forty I will not do it.’ 30   Then Abraham said, ‘Please do not be angry, O Lord, if I speak again: suppose thirty can be found there?’ He answered, ‘If I find thirty there I will not do it.’ 31   Abraham continued, ‘May I presume to speak to the Lord: suppose twenty can be found there?’ He replied, ‘For the sake of the twenty I will not destroy it.’ 32   Abraham said, ‘I pray thee not to be angry, O Lord, if I speak just once more: suppose ten can be found there?’ He said, ‘For the sake of the ten I will not destroy it.’ 33   When the Lord had finished talking with Abraham, he left him, and Abraham returned home.

1   The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them he rose to meet them and

Abraham and Isaac bowed low with his face to the ground. 2   He said, ‘I pray you, sirs, turn aside to my humble home, spend the night there and wash your feet; you can rise early and continue your journey.’ 3   ‘No,’ they answered, ‘we will spend the night in the street.’ But Lot was so insistent that they did turn aside and enter his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking unleavened cakes, and they ate them. 4   Before they lay down to sleep, the men of Sodom, both young and old, surrounded the house—everyone without exception. 5   They called to Lot and asked him where the men were who had entered his house that night. ‘Bring them out’, they shouted, ‘so that we can have intercourse with them.’

6   Lot went out into the doorway to them, closed the door behind him and said, ‘No, my friends, do not be so wicked. 7    8   Look, I have two daughters, both virgins; let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them; but do not touch these men, because they have come under the shelter of my roof.’ 9   They said, ‘Out of our way! This man has come and settled here as an alien, and does he now take it upon himself to judge us? We will treat you worse than them.’ They crowded in on the man Lot and pressed close to smash in the door. 10   But the two men inside reached out, pulled Lot in, and closed the door. 11   Then they struck the men in the doorway with blindness, both small and great, so that they could not find the door.

12   The two men said to Lot, ‘Have you anyone else here, sons-in-law, sons, or daughters, or any who belong to you in the city? Get them out of this place, because we are going to destroy it. 13   The outcry against it has been so great that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.’ 14   So Lot went out and spoke to his intended sons-in-law. ^noteHe said, ‘Be quick and leave this place; the Lord is going to destroy the city.’ But they did not take him seriously.

15   As soon as it was dawn, the angels urged Lot to go, saying, ‘Be quick, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.’ 16   When he lingered, they took him by the hand, with his wife and his daughters, and, because the Lord had spared him, led him on until he was outside the city. 17   When they had brought them out, they said, ‘Flee for your lives; do not look back and do not stop anywhere in the Plain. Flee to the hills or you will be swept away.’ 18    19   Lot replied, ‘No, sirs. You have shown your servant favour and you have added to your unfailing care for me by saving my life, but I cannot escape to the hills; I shall be overtaken by the disaster, and die. 20   Look, here is a town, only a small place, near enough for me to reach quickly. Let me escape to it—it is very small—and save my life.’ 21   He said to him, ‘I grant your request: I will not overthrow this town you speak of. 22   But flee there quickly, because I can do

Abraham and Isaac nothing until you are there.’ That is why the place was called Zoar. ^note 23    24   The sun had risen over the land as Lot entered Zoar; and then the Lord rained down fire and brimstone from the skies on Sodom and Gomorrah. 25   He overthrew those cities and destroyed all the Plain, with everyone living there and everything growing in the ground. 26   But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she turned into a pillar of salt.

27   Next morning Abraham rose early and went to the place where he had stood in the presence of the Lord. 28   He looked down towards Sodom and Gomorrah and all the wide extent of the Plain, and there he saw thick smoke rising high from the earth like the smoke of a lime-kiln. 29   Thus, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, he thought of Abraham and rescued Lot from the disaster, the overthrow of the cities where he had been living.

30   Lot went up from Zoar and settled in the hill-country with his two daughters, because he was afraid to stay in Zoar; he lived with his two daughters in a cave. 31   The elder daughter said to the younger, ‘Our father is old and there is not a man in the country to come to us in the usual way. 32   Come now, let us make our father drink wine and then lie with him and in this way keep the family alive through our father.’ 33   So that night they gave him wine to drink, and the elder daughter came and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down and when she got up. 34   Next day the elder said to the younger, ‘Last night I lay with my father. Let us give him wine to drink again tonight; then you go in and lie with him. So we shall keep the family alive through our father.’ 35   So they gave their father wine to drink again that night, and the younger daughter went and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down and when she got up. 36   In this way both Lot's daughters came to be with child by their father. 37   The elder daughter bore a son and called him Moab; he was the ancestor of the present Moabites. 38   The younger also bore a son, whom she called Ben-ammi; he was the ancestor of the present Ammonites.

1   Abraham journeyed by stages from there into the Negeb, and settled between Kadesh and Shur, living as an alien in Gerar. 2   He said that Sarah his wife was his sister, and Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took her. 3   But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said, ‘You shall die because of this woman whom you have taken. She is a married woman.’ 4   Now Abimelech had not gone near her; and he said, ‘Lord, wilt thou destroy an innocent people? 5   Did he not tell me himself that she was his sister, and she herself said that he was her brother. It was with a clear conscience ^note and in all innocence that I did this.’ 6   God said to him in the dream, ‘Yes: I know that you acted with a clear

Abraham and Isaac conscience. Moreover, it was I who held you back from committing a sin against me: that is why I did not let you touch her. 7   Send back the man's wife now; he is a prophet, and he will intercede on your behalf, and you shall live. But if you do not send her back, I tell you that you are doomed to die, you and all that is yours.’ 8   So Abimelech rose early in the morning, summoned all his servants and told them the whole story; the men were terrified. 9   Abimelech then summoned Abraham and said to him, ‘Why have you treated us like this? What harm have I done to you that you should bring this great sin on me and my kingdom? 10   You have done a thing that ought not to be done.’ And he asked Abraham, ‘What was your purpose in doing this?’ 11   Abraham answered, ‘I said to myself, There can be no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me for the sake of my wife. 12   She is in fact my sister, she is my father's daughter though not by the same mother; and she became my wife. 13   When God set me wandering from my father's house, I said to her, “There is a duty towards me which you must loyally fulfil: wherever we go, you must say that I am your brother.”’ 14   Then Abimelech took sheep and cattle, and male and female slaves, gave them to Abraham, and returned his wife Sarah to him. 15   Abimelech said, ‘My country lies before you; settle wherever you please.’ 16   To Sarah he said, ‘I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver, so that your own people may turn a blind eye on it all, and you will be completely vindicated.’ 17   Then Abraham interceded with God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his slave-girls, and they bore children; 18   for the Lord had made every woman in Abimelech's household barren on account of Abraham's wife Sarah.

1   The Lord showed favour to Sarah as he had promised, and made good what he had said about her. 2   She conceived and bore a son to Abraham for his old age, at the time which God had appointed. 3   The son whom Sarah bore to him, Abraham named Isaac. ^note 4   When Isaac was eight days old Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded. 5   Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born. 6   Sarah said, ‘God has given me good reason to laugh, and everybody who hears will laugh with me.’ 7   She said, ‘Whoever would have told Abraham that Sarah would suckle children? Yet I have borne him a son for his old age.’ 8   The boy grew and was weaned, and on the day of his weaning Abraham gave a feast. 9   Sarah saw the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham laughing at him, 10   and she said to Abraham, ‘Drive out this slave-girl and her son; I will not have this slave-girl's son sharing the inheritance with my son Isaac.’ 11   Abraham was vexed at this on his son Ishmael's account, 12   but God said to him, ‘Do not be vexed on account of the boy and the slave-girl. Do what

Abraham and Isaac Sarah says, because you shall have descendants through Isaac. 13   I will make a great ^note nation of the slave-girl's son too, because he is your own child.’

14   Abraham rose early in the morning, took some food and a waterskin full of water and gave it to Hagar; he set the child on her shoulder and sent her away, and she went and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. 15   When the water in the skin was finished, she thrust the child under a bush, 16   and went and sat down some way off, about two bowshots away, for she said, ‘How can I watch the child die?’ So she sat some way off, weeping bitterly. 17   God heard the child crying, and the ^note angel of God called from heaven to Hagar, ‘What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid: God has heard the child crying where you laid him. 18   Get to your feet, lift the child up and hold him in your arms, because I will make of him a great nation.’ 19   Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well full of water; she went to it, filled her waterskin and gave the child a drink. 20    21   God was with the child, and he grew up and lived in the wilderness of Paran. He became an archer, and his mother found him a wife from Egypt.

22   Now about that time Abimelech, with Phicol the commander of his army, addressed Abraham in these terms: ‘God is with you in all that you do. 23   Now swear an oath to me in the name of God, that you will not break faith with me, my offspring, or my descendants. As I have kept faith with you, so shall you keep faith with me and with the country where you have come to live as an alien.’ 24   Abraham said, ‘I swear.’ 25   It happened that Abraham had a complaint against Abimelech about a well which Abimelech's men had seized. 26   Abimelech said, ‘I do not know who did this. You never told me, and I have heard nothing about it till now.’ 27   So Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech; and the two of them made a pact. 28   Abraham set seven ewe-lambs apart, 29   and when Abimelech asked him why he had set these lambs apart, 30   he said, ‘Accept these from me in token that I dug this well.’ 31   Therefore that place was called Beersheba, ^note because there the two of them swore an oath. 32   When they had made the pact at Beersheba, Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army returned at once to the country of the Philistines, 33   and Abraham planted a strip of ground ^note at Beersheba. There he invoked the Lord, the everlasting God, by name, 34   and he lived as an alien in the country of the Philistines for many a year.

1   The time came when God put Abraham to the test. ‘Abraham’, he called, and Abraham replied, ‘Here I am.’ 2   God said, ‘Take your son Isaac, your only son, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah.

Abraham and Isaac There you shall offer him as a sacrifice on one of the hills which I will show you.’ 3   So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his ass, and he took with him two of his men and his son Isaac; and he split the firewood for the sacrifice, and set out for the place of which God had spoken. 4   On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5   He said to his men, ‘Stay here with the ass while I and the boy go over there; and when we have worshipped we will come back to you.’ 6   So Abraham took the wood for the sacrifice and laid it on his son Isaac's shoulder; he himself carried the fire and the knife, and the two of them went on together. 7   Isaac said to Abraham, ‘Father’, and he answered, ‘What is it, my son?’ Isaac said, ‘Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the young beast for the sacrifice?’ 8   Abraham answered, ‘God will provide himself with a young beast for a sacrifice, my son.’ 9   And the two of them went on together and came to the place of which God had spoken. There Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. 10   Then he stretched out his hand and took the knife to kill his son; 11   but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, ‘Abraham, Abraham.’ 12   He answered, ‘Here I am.’ The angel of the Lord said, ‘Do not raise your hand against the boy; do not touch him. Now I know that you are a God-fearing man. You have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’ 13   Abraham looked up, and there he saw a ^note ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he went and took the ram and offered it as a sacrifice instead of his son. 14   Abraham named that place Jehovah-jireh; ^note and to this day the saying is: ‘In the mountain of the Lord it was provided.’ 15   Then the angel of the Lord called from heaven a second time to Abraham, ‘This is the word of the Lord: 16   By my own self I swear: inasmuch as you have done this and have not withheld your son, 17   your only son, I will bless you abundantly and greatly multiply your descendants until they are as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the sea-shore. Your descendants shall possess the cities ^note of their enemies. 18   All nations on earth shall pray to be blessed as your descendants are blessed, and this because you have obeyed me.’

19   Abraham went back to his men, and together they returned to Beersheba; and there Abraham remained.

20   After this Abraham was told, ‘Milcah has borne sons to your brother Nahor: 21   Uz his first-born, then his brother Buz, and Kemuel father of Aram, and Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph and Bethuel; 22    23   and a daughter, Rebecca, has been born to Bethuel.’ These eight Milcah bore to Abraham's brother Nahor. 24   His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore him sons: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash and Maacah.

Abraham and Isaac

1    2   Sarah lived for a hundred and twenty-seven years, ^note and died in Kiriath-arba, which is Hebron, in Canaan. Abraham went in to mourn over Sarah and to weep for her. 3   At last he rose and left the presence of the dead. 4   He said to the Hittites, ^note ‘I am an alien and a settler among you. Give me land enough for a burial-place, so that I can give my dead proper burial.’ 5    6   The Hittites answered Abraham, ‘Do, pray, listen to what we have to say, sir. You are a mighty prince among us. Bury your dead in the best grave we have. There is not one of us who will deny you his grave or hinder you from burying your dead.’ 7   Abraham stood up and then bowed low to the Hittites, the people of that country. 8   He said to them, ‘If you are willing to let me give my dead proper burial, then listen to me and speak for me to Ephron son of Zohar, 9   asking him to give me the cave that belongs to him at Machpelah, at the far end of his land. Let him give it to me for the full price, so that I may take possession of it as a burial-place within your territory.’ 10   Ephron the Hittite was sitting with the others, and he gave Abraham this answer in the hearing of everyone as they came into the city gate: ‘No, sir; hear what I have to say. 11   I will make you a gift of the land and I will also give you the cave which is on it. In the presence of all my kinsmen I give it to you; so bury your dead.’ 12   Abraham bowed 13   low before the people of the country and said to Ephron in their hearing, ‘If you really mean it—but do listen to me! I give you the price of the land: take it and I will bury my dead there.’ 14   And Ephron answered, ‘Do listen to me, sir: 15   the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver. But what is that between you and me? There you may bury your dead.’ 16   Abraham came to an agreement with him and weighed out the amount that Ephron had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of the standard recognized by merchants. 17   Thus the plot of land belonging to Ephron at Machpelah to the east of Mamre, the plot, the cave that is on it, every tree on the plot, within the whole area, 18   became the legal possession of Abraham, in the presence of all the Hittites as they came into the city gate. 19   After this Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave on the plot of land at Machpelah to the east of Mamre, which is Hebron, in Canaan. 20   Thus the plot and the cave on it became Abraham's possession as a burial-place, by purchase from the Hittites.

1   By this time Abraham had become a very old man, and the Lord had blessed him in all that he did. 2   Abraham said to his servant, who had been long in his service and was in charge of all his possessions, ‘Put your hand under my thigh: 3   I want you to swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the women of the Canaanites in whose land I dwell; 4   you must go to

Abraham and Isaac my own country and to my own kindred to find a wife for my son Isaac.’ 5   The servant said to him, ‘What if the woman is unwilling to come with me to this country? Must I in that event take your son back to the land from which you came?’ 6   Abraham said to him, ‘On no account are you to take my son back there. 7   The Lord the God of heaven who took me from my father's house and the land of my birth, the Lord who swore to me that he would give this land to my descendants—he will send his angel before you, and from there you shall take a wife for my son. 8   If the woman is unwilling to come with you, then you will be released from your oath to me; but you must not take my son back there.’ 9   So the servant put his hand under his master Abraham's thigh and swore an oath in those terms.

10   The servant took ten camels from his master's herds, and also all kinds of gifts from his master; he set out for Aram-naharaim ^note and arrived at the city where Nahor lived. 11   Towards evening, the time when the women come out to draw water, he made the camels kneel down by the well outside the city. 12   He said, ‘O Lord God of my master Abraham, give me good fortune this day; keep faith with my master Abraham. 13   Here I stand by the spring, and the women of the city are coming out to draw water. 14   Let it be like this: I shall say to a girl, “Please lower your jar so that I may drink”; and if she answers, “Drink, and I will water your camels also”, that will be the girl whom thou dost intend for thy servant Isaac. In this way I shall know that thou hast kept faith with my master.’

15   Before he had finished praying silently, ^note he saw Rebecca coming out with her water-jug on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham's brother Nahor. 16   The girl was very beautiful, a virgin, who had no intercourse with a man. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again. 17   Abraham's servant hurried to meet her and said, ‘Give me a sip of water from your jar.’ 18   ‘Drink, sir’, she answered, and at once lowered her jar on to her hand to let him drink. 19   When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, ‘Now I will draw water for your camels until they have had enough.’ 20   So she quickly emptied her jar into the water-trough, hurried again to the well to draw water and watered all the camels. 21   The man was watching quietly to see whether or not the Lord had made his journey successful. 22   When the camels had finished drinking, the man took a gold nose-ring weighing half a shekel, and two bracelets for her wrists weighing ten shekels, 23   also of gold, and said, ‘Tell me, please, whose daughter you are. Is there room in your father's house for us to spend the night?’ 24   She answered, ‘I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Nahor and Milcah; 25   and we have plenty of straw and fodder and also

Abraham and Isaac room for you to spend the night.’ 26   So the man bowed down and prostrated himself to the Lord. 27   He said, ‘Blessed be the Lord the God of my master Abraham, who has not failed to keep faith and truth with my master; for I have been guided by the Lord to the house of my master's kinsman.’

28   The girl ran to her mother's house and told them what had happened. 29    30   Now Rebecca had a brother named Laban; and, when he saw the nosering, and also the bracelets on his sister's wrists, and heard his sister Rebecca tell what the man had said to her, he ran out to the man at the spring. When he came to him and found him still standing there by the camels, he said, ‘Come in, sir, whom the Lord has blessed. 31   Why stay outside? I have prepared the house, and there is room for the camels.’ 32   So he brought the man into the house, unloaded the camels and provided straw and fodder for them, and water for him and all his men to wash their feet. 33   Food was set before him, but he said, ‘I will not eat until I have delivered my message.’ 34   Laban said, ‘Let us hear it.’ He answered, ‘I am the servant of Abraham. 35   The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become a man of power. The Lord has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female slaves, camels and asses. 36   My master's wife Sarah in her old age bore him a son, to whom he has given all that he has. 37   So my master made me swear an oath, saying, “You shall not take a wife for my son from the women of the Canaanites in whose land I dwell; 38   but you shall go to my father's house and to my family to find a wife for him.” 39   So I said to my master, “What if the woman will not come with me?” 40   He answered, “The Lord, in whose presence I have lived, will send his angel with you and will make your journey successful. You shall take a wife for my son from my family and from my father's house; 41   then you shall be released from the charge I have laid upon you. But if, when you come to my family, they will not give her to you, you shall still be released from the charge.” 42   So I came to the spring today, and I said, “O Lord God of my master Abraham, 43   if thou wilt make my journey successful, let it be like this. Here I stand by the spring. When a young woman comes out to draw water, I shall say to her, ‘Give me a little water to drink from your jar.’ 44   If she answers, ‘Yes, do drink, and I will draw water for your camels as well’, she is the woman whom the Lord intends for my master's son.” 45   Before I had finished praying silently, I saw Rebecca coming out with her water-jar on her shoulder. She went down to the spring and drew some water, and I said to her, “Please give me a drink.” 46   She quickly lowered her jar from her shoulder and said, “Drink; and I will water your camels as well.” So I drank, and she also gave my camels water. 47   I asked her whose daughter she was, and she said, “I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Nahor and Milcah.” Then I put the

Abraham and Isaac ring in her nose and the bracelets on her wrists, 48   and I bowed low and prostrated myself before the Lord. I blessed the Lord the God of my master Abraham, who had led me by the right road to take my master's niece for his son. 49   Now tell me if you will keep faith and truth with my master. If not, say so, and I will turn elsewhere.’ ^note

50   Laban and Bethuel answered, ‘This is from the Lord; we can say nothing for or against. 51   Here is Rebecca herself; take her and go. She shall be the wife of your master's son, as the Lord has decreed.’ 52   When Abraham's servant heard what they said, he prostrated himself on the ground before the Lord. 53   Then he brought out gold and silver ornaments, and robes, and gave them to Rebecca, and he gave costly gifts to her brother and her mother. 54   He and his men then ate and drank and spent the night there. When they rose in the morning, he said, ‘Give me leave to go back to my master.’ 55   Her brother and her mother said, ‘Let the girl stay with us for a few days, say ten days, and then she shall go.’ 56   But he said to them, ‘Do not detain me, for the Lord has granted me success. 57   Give me leave to return to my master.’ They said, ‘Let us call the girl and see what she says.’ 58   They called Rebecca and asked her if she would go with the man, and she said, ‘Yes, I will go.’ 59   So they let their sister Rebecca and her nurse go with Abraham's servant and his men. 60   They blessed Rebecca and said to her:

  ‘You are our sister, may you be the mother of myriads;
  may your sons possess the cities ^note of their enemies.’

61   Then Rebecca and her companions mounted their camels at once and followed the man. So the servant took Rebecca and went his way.

62   Isaac meanwhile had moved on as far as Beer-lahai-roi and was living in the Negeb. 63   One evening when he had gone out into the open country hoping to meet them, ^note he looked up and saw camels approaching. 64   When Rebecca raised her eyes and saw Isaac, she slipped hastily from her camel, 65   saying to the servant, ‘Who is that man walking across the open towards us?’ The servant answered, ‘It is my master.’ So she took her veil and covered herself. 66   The servant related to Isaac all that had happened. 67   Isaac conducted her into the tent ^note and took her as his wife. So she became his wife, and he loved her and was consoled for the death of his mother.

1    ^noteAbraham married another wife, whose name was Keturah. 2   She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. Jokshan became the father of Sheba and Dedan. 3   The sons of Dedan were Asshurim, 4   Letushim and Leummim, and the sons of Midian

Abraham and Isaac were Ephah, Epher, Enoch, Abida and Eldaah. All these were descendants of Keturah.

5    6   Abraham had given all that he had to Isaac; and he had already in his lifetime given presents to the sons of his concubines, and had sent them away eastwards, to a land of the east, out of his son Isaac's way. 7    8   Abraham had lived for a hundred and seventy-five years when he breathed his last. He died at a good old age, after a very long life, and was gathered to his father's kin. 9   His sons, Isaac and Ishmael, buried him in the cave at Machpelah, on the land of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, 10   east of Mamre, the plot which Abraham had bought from the Hittites. 11   There Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah. After the death of Abraham, God blessed his son Isaac, who settled close by Beer-lahai-roi.

12   This is the table of the descendants of Abraham's son Ishmael, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's slave-girl, bore to him. 13    ^noteThese are the names of the sons of Ishmael named in order of their birth: Nebaioth, 14   Ishmael's eldest son, then Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, 15   Massa, Hadad, ^note Teman, ^note Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah. 16   These are the sons of Ishmael, after whom their hamlets and encampments were named, twelve princes according to their tribal groups. 17   Ishmael had lived for a hundred and thirty-seven years when he breathed his last. So he died and was gathered to his father's kin. 18   Ishmael's sons inhabited the land from Havilah to Shur, which is east of Egypt on the way to Asshur, having settled to the east of his brothers.

19   This is the table of the descendants of Abraham's son Isaac. 20   Isaac's father was Abraham. When Isaac was forty years old he married Rebecca the daughter of Bethuel the Aramaean from Paddan-aram and the sister of Laban the Aramaean. 21   Isaac appealed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren; the Lord yielded to his entreaty, and Rebecca conceived. 22   The children pressed hard on each other in her womb, and she said, ‘If this is how it is with me, what does it mean?’ So she went to seek guidance of the Lord. 23   The Lord said to her:

  ‘Two nations in your womb,
  two peoples, going their own ways from birth!
  One shall be stronger than the other;
  the older shall be servant to the younger.’

24    25   When her time had come, there were indeed twins in her womb. The first came out red, hairy all over like a hair-cloak, and they named him Esau. ^note 26   Immediately afterwards his brother was born with his hand

Abraham and Isaac grasping Esau's heel, and they called him Jacob. ^noteIsaac was sixty years old when they were born. 27   The boys grew up; and Esau became skilful in hunting, a man of the open plains, but Jacob led a settled life and stayed among the tents. 28   Isaac favoured Esau because he kept him supplied with venison, but Rebecca favoured Jacob. 29   One day Jacob prepared a broth and when Esau came in from the country, exhausted, he said to Jacob, ‘I am exhausted; 30   let me swallow some of that red broth’: this is why he was called Edom. ^note 31   Jacob said, ‘Not till you sell me your rights as the first-born.’ 32   Esau replied, ‘I am at death's door; what use is my birthright to me?’ 33   Jacob said, ‘Not till you swear!’; so he swore an oath and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34   Then Jacob gave Esau bread and the lentil broth, and he ate and drank and went away without more ado. Thus Esau showed how little he valued his birthright.

1   There came a famine in the land—not the earlier famine in Abraham's time—and Isaac went to Abimelech the Philistine king at Gerar. 2   The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, ‘Do not go down to Egypt, but stay in this country as I bid you. 3   Stay in this country and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands. Thus shall I fulfil the oath which I swore to your father Abraham. 4   I will make your descendants as many as the stars in the sky; I will give them all these lands, and all the nations of the earth will pray 5   to be blessed as they are blessed—all because Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.’ 6   So Isaac lived in Gerar.

7   When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he told them that she was his sister; he was afraid to say that Rebecca was his wife, in case they killed him because of her; for she was very beautiful. 8   When they had been there for some considerable time, Abimelech the Philistine king looked down from his window and saw Isaac and his wife Rebecca laughing together. 9   He summoned Isaac and said, ‘So she is your wife, is she? 10   What made you say she was your sister?’ Isaac answered, ‘I thought I should be killed because of her.’ Abimelech said, ‘Why have you treated us like this? One of the people might easily have gone to bed with your wife, and then you would have made us liable to retribution.’ 11   So Abimelech warned all the people, threatening that whoever touched this man or his wife would be put to death.

12   Isaac sowed seed in that land, and that year he reaped a hundred-fold, and the Lord blessed him. 13   He became more and more powerful, until he was very powerful indeed. 14   He had flocks and herds and many slaves, so that the Philistines were envious of him. 15   They had stopped up all the wells dug by the slaves in the days of Isaac's father

Abraham and Isaac Abraham, and filled them with earth. 18   Isaac dug them again, all those wells dug in his father Abraham's time, and stopped up by the Philistines after his death, and he called them by the names which his father had given them.

16   Then Abimelech said to him, ‘Go away from here; you are too strong for us.’ 17   So Isaac left that place and encamped in the valley of Gerar, and stayed there. 19    ^noteThen Isaac's slaves dug in the valley and found a spring of running water, 20   but the shepherds of Gerar quarrelled with Isaac's shepherds, claiming the water as theirs. He called the well Esek, ^note because they made difficulties for him. 21   His men then dug another well, but the others quarrelled with him over that also, so he called it Sitnah. ^note 22   He moved on from there and dug another well, but there was no quarrel over that one, so he called it Rehoboth, ^note saying, ‘Now the Lord has given us plenty of room and we shall be fruitful in the land.’

23    24   Isaac went up country from there to Beersheba. That same night the Lord appeared to him there and said, ‘I am the God of your father Abraham. Fear nothing, for I am with you. I will bless you and give you many descendants for the sake of Abraham my servant.’ 25   So Isaac built an altar there and invoked the Lord by name. Then he pitched his tent there, and there also his slaves dug a well. 26   Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his friend and Phicol the commander of his army. 27   Isaac said to them, ‘Why have you come here? You hate me and you sent me away.’ 28   They answered, ‘We have seen plainly that the Lord is with you, so we thought, “Let the two of us put each other to the oath and make a treaty that will bind us.” 29   We have not attacked you, we have done you nothing but good, and we let you go away peaceably. Swear that you will do us no harm, now that the Lord has blessed you.’ 30    31   So Isaac gave a feast and they ate and drank. They rose early in the morning and exchanged oaths. Then Isaac bade them farewell, and they parted from him in peace. 32   The same day Isaac's slaves came and told him about a well that they had dug: ‘We have found water’, they said. He named the well Shibah. ^note 33   This is why the city is called Beersheba ^note to this day.

34   When Esau was forty years old he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite; 35   this was a bitter grief to Isaac and Rebecca.

Jacob and Esau

1   When Isaac grew old and his eyes became so dim that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, ‘My son’, and he answered, ‘Here I am.’ 2   Isaac said, ‘Listen now: I am old and I do not know when I may die. 3   Take your hunting gear, your quiver and your bow, and go out into the country and get me some venison. 4   Then make me a savoury dish of the kind I like, and bring it to me to eat so that I may give you my blessing before I die.’ 5   Now Rebecca was listening as Isaac talked to his son Esau. When Esau went off into the country to find some venison and bring it home, 6   she said to her son Jacob, ‘I heard your father talking to your brother Esau, and he said, 7   “Bring me some venison and make it into a savoury dish so that I may eat it and bless you in the presence of the Lord before I die.” 8    9   Listen to me, my son, and do what I tell you. Go to the flock and pick me out two fine young kids, and I will make them into a savoury dish for your father, of the kind he likes. 10   Then take them in to your father, and he will eat them so that he may bless you before he dies.’ 11   Jacob said to his mother Rebecca, ‘But my brother Esau is a hairy man, and my skin is smooth. 12   Suppose my father feels me, he will know I am tricking him and I shall bring a curse upon myself instead of a blessing.’ 13   His mother answered him, ‘Let the curse fall on me, my son, but do as I say; go and bring me the kids.’ 14   So Jacob fetched them and brought them to his mother, who made them into a savoury dish of the kind that his father liked. 15   Then Rebecca took her elder son's clothes, Esau's best clothes which she kept by her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. 16   She put the goatskins on his hands and on the smooth nape of his neck; 17   and she handed her son Jacob the savoury dish and the bread she had made. 18   He came to his father and said, ‘Father.’ He answered, ‘Yes, my son; who are you?’ 19   Jacob answered his father, ‘I am Esau, your elder son. I have done as you told me. Come, sit up and eat some of my venison, so that you may give me your blessing.’ 20   Isaac said to his son, ‘What is this that you found so quickly?’, and Jacob answered, ‘It is what the Lord your God put in my way.’ 21   Isaac then said to Jacob, ‘Come close and let me feel you, my son, to see whether you are really my son Esau.’ 22   When Jacob came close to his father, Isaac felt him and said, ‘The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’ 23   He did not recognize him because his hands were hairy like Esau's, and that is why he blessed him. 24   He said, ‘Are you really my son Esau?’, and he answered, ‘Yes.’ 25   Then Isaac said, ‘Bring me some of your ^note

Jacob and Esau venison to eat, my son, so that I may give you my blessing.’ Then Jacob brought it to him, and he ate it; he brought wine also, and he drank it. 26   Then his father Isaac said to him, ‘Come near, my son, and kiss me.’ 27   So he came near and kissed him, and when Isaac smelt the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said:

  ‘Ah! The smell of my son is like the smell of open country
    blessed by the Lord.
   28   God give you dew from heaven
  and the richness of the earth,
  corn and new wine in plenty!
   29   Peoples shall serve you,
  nations bow down to you.
    Be lord over your brothers;
  may your mother's sons bow down to you.
  A curse upon those who curse you;
  a blessing on those who bless you!’

30   Isaac finished blessing Jacob; and Jacob had scarcely left his father Isaac's presence, when his brother Esau came in from his hunting. 31   He too made a savoury dish and brought it to his father. He said, ‘Come, father, and eat some of my venison, so that you may give me your blessing.’ 32   His father Isaac said, ‘Who are you?’ He said, ‘I am Esau, your elder son.’ 33   Then Isaac became greatly agitated ^note and said, ‘Then who was it that hunted and brought me venison? I ate it all before you came in and I blessed him, and the blessing will stand.’ 34   When Esau heard what his father said, he gave a loud and bitter cry and said, ‘Bless me too, father.’ 35   But Isaac said, ‘Your brother came treacherously and took away your blessing.’ 36   Esau said, ‘He is rightly called Jacob. ^noteThis is the second time he has supplanted me. He took away my right as the first-born and now he has taken away my blessing. Have you kept back any blessing for me?’ 37   Isaac answered, ‘I have made him lord over you, and I have given him all his brothers as slaves. I have bestowed upon him corn and new wine for his sustenance. What is there left that I can do for you, my son?’ 38   Esau asked his father, ‘Had you then only one blessing, father? Bless me too, my father.’ And Esau cried bitterly. 39   Then his father Isaac answered:

  ‘Your dwelling shall be far from the richness of the earth,
    far from the dew of heaven above.
    By your sword shall you live,
    and you shall serve your brother;
    but the time will come when you grow restive
    and break off his yoke from your neck.’

Jacob and Esau

41   Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing which his father had given him, and he said to himself, ‘The time of mourning for my father will soon be here; then I will kill my brother Jacob.’ 42   When Rebecca was told what her elder son Esau was saying, she called her younger son Jacob, and she said to him, ‘Esau your brother is threatening to kill you. 43   Now, my son, listen to me. Slip away at once to my brother Laban in Harran. 44   Stay with him for a while until your brother's anger cools. 45   When it has subsided and he forgets what you have done to him, I will send and fetch you back. Why should I lose you both in one day?’

46   Rebecca said to Isaac, ‘I am weary to death of Hittite women! If Jacob marries a Hittite woman like those who live here, my life will not be worth living.’

1   Isaac called Jacob, blessed him and gave him instructions. 2   He said, ‘You must not marry one of these women of Canaan. Go at once to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, in Paddan-aram, and there find a wife, one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. 3   God Almighty bless you, make you fruitful and increase your descendants until they become a host of nations. 4   May he bestow on you and your offspring the blessing of Abraham, and may you thus possess the country where you are now living, the land which God gave to Abraham!’ 5   So Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Aramaean, and brother to Rebecca the mother of Jacob and Esau. 6   Esau discovered that Isaac had given Jacob his blessing and had sent him away to Paddan-aram to find a wife there; and that when he blessed him he had forbidden him to marry a woman of Canaan, 7   and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and gone to Paddan-aram. 8   Then Esau, seeing that his father disliked the women of Canaan, 9   went to Ishmael, and, in addition to his other wives, he married Mahalath sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Abraham's son Ishmael.

10   Jacob set out from Beersheba and went on his way towards Harran. 11   He came to a certain place and stopped there for the night, because the sun had set; and, taking one of the stones there, he made it a pillow for his head and lay down to sleep. 12   He dreamt that he saw a ladder, which rested on the ground with its top reaching to heaven, and angels of God were going up and down upon it. 13   The Lord was standing beside him ^note and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. This land on which you are lying I will give to you and your descendants. 14   They shall be countless as the dust upon the earth, and you shall spread far and wide, to north and south, to east and west. All the families of the earth shall pray to be blessed as you and your descendants are blessed. 15   I will be with you, and I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land; for I will not

Jacob and Esau leave you until I have done all that I have promised.’ 16   Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Truly the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’ Then he was afraid and said, ‘How fearsome is this place! 17   This is no other than the house of God, this is the gate of heaven.’ 18   Jacob rose early in the morning, took the stone on which he had laid his head, set it up as a sacred pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19   He named that place Beth-El; ^note but the earlier name of the city was Luz.

20   Thereupon Jacob made this vow: ‘If God will be with me, if he will protect me on my journey and give me food to eat and clothes to wear, and I come back safely to my father's house, 21   then the Lord shall be my God, 22   and this stone which I have set up as a sacred pillar shall be a house of God. And of all that thou givest me, I will without fail allot a tenth part to thee.’

1   Jacob continued his journey and came to the land of the eastern tribes. 2   There he saw a well in the open country and three flocks of sheep lying beside it, because the flocks were watered from that well. 3   Over its mouth was a huge stone, and all the herdsmen used to gather there and roll it off the mouth of the well and water the flocks; then they would put it back in its place over the well. 4   Jacob said to them, ‘Where are you from, my friends?’ ‘We are from Harran’, they replied. He asked them if they knew Laban the grandson ^note of Nahor. 5   They answered, ‘Yes, we do.’ ‘Is he well?’ 6   Jacob asked; and they answered, ‘Yes, he is well, and here is his daughter Rachel coming with the flock.’ Jacob said, ‘The sun is still high, and the time for folding the sheep has not yet come. 7   Water the flocks and then go and graze them.’ 8   But they replied, ‘We cannot, until all the herdsmen have gathered together and the stone is rolled away from the mouth of the well; then we can water our flocks.’ 9   While he was talking to them, Rachel came up with her father's flock, for she was a shepherdess. 10   When Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban his mother's brother, with Laban's flock, he stepped forward, rolled the stone off the mouth of the well and watered Laban's sheep. 11    12   He kissed Rachel, and was moved to tears. He told her that he was her father's kinsman and Rebecca's son; so she ran and told her father. 13   When Laban heard the news of his sister's son Jacob, he ran to meet him, embraced him, kissed him warmly and welcomed him to his home. 14   Jacob told Laban everything, and Laban said, ‘Yes, you are my own flesh and blood.’ So Jacob stayed with him for a whole month.

15   Laban said to Jacob, ‘Why should you work for me for nothing simply because you are my kinsman? Tell me what your wages ought to be.’ 16   Now Laban had two daughters: the elder was called Leah, and the younger Rachel. 17   Leah was dull-eyed, but Rachel was graceful and

Jacob and Esau beautiful. 18   Jacob had fallen in love with Rachel and he said, ‘I will work seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.’ 19   Laban replied, ‘It is better that I should give her to you than to anyone else; stay with me.’ 20   So Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, and they seemed like a few days because he loved her. 21   Then Jacob said to Laban, ‘I have served my time. 22   Give me my wife so that we may sleep together.’ So Laban gathered all the men of the place together and gave a feast. 23   In the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob slept with her. 24   At the same time Laban gave his slave-girl Zilpah to his daughter Leah. 25   But when morning came, Jacob saw that it was Leah and said to Laban, ‘What have you done to me? Did I not work for Rachel? 26   Why have you deceived me?’ Laban answered, ‘In our country it is not right to give the younger sister in marriage before the elder. 27   Go through with the seven days' feast for the elder, and the younger shall be given you in return for a further seven years' work.’ 28   Jacob agreed, and completed the seven days for Leah.

29   Then Laban gave Jacob his daughter Rachel as wife; and he gave his slave-girl Bilhah to serve his daughter Rachel. 30   Jacob slept with Rachel also; he loved her rather than Leah, and he worked for Laban for a further seven years. 31   When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he granted her a child; but Rachel was childless. 32   Leah conceived and bore a son; and she called him Reuben, ^note for she said, ‘The Lord has seen my humiliation; 33   now my husband will love me.’ Again she conceived and bore a son and said, ‘The Lord, hearing that I am not loved, has given me this child also’; and she called him Simeon. ^note 34   She conceived again and bore a son; and she said, ‘Now that I have borne him three sons my husband and I will surely be united.’ So she called him Levi. ^note 35   Once more she conceived and bore a son; and she said, ‘Now I will praise the Lord’; therefore she named him Judah. ^noteThen for a while she bore no more children.

1   When Rachel found that she bore Jacob no children, she became jealous of her sister and said to Jacob, ‘Give me sons, or I shall die.’ 2   Jacob said angrily to Rachel, ‘Can I take the place of God, who has denied your children?’ 3   She said, ‘Here is my slave-girl Bilhah. Lie with her, so that she may bear sons to be laid upon my knees, and through her I too may build up a family.’ 4   So she gave him her slave-girl Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob lay with her. 5   Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. 6   Then Rachel said, ‘God has given judgement for me; he has indeed heard me and given me a son’, so she named him Dan. ^note 7   Rachel's slave-girl Bilhah again conceived and bore Jacob another son. 8   Rachel said, ‘I have played a fine trick on my sister, and it has succeeded’; so

Jacob and Esau she named him Naphtali. ^note 9   When Leah found that she was bearing no more children, she took her slave-girl Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife, 10    11   and Zilpah bore Jacob a son. Leah said, ‘Good fortune has come’, and she named him Gad. ^note 12   Zilpah, Leah's slave-girl, bore Jacob another son, 13   and Leah said, ‘Happiness has come, ^note for young women will call me happy.’ So she named him Asher. ^note

14   In the time of wheat-harvest Reuben went out and found some mandrakes in the open country and brought them to his mother Leah. 15   Then Rachel asked Leah for some of her son's mandrakes, but Leah said, ‘Is it so small a thing to have taken away my husband, that you should take my son's mandrakes as well?’ But Rachel said, ‘Very well, let him sleep with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes.’ 16   So when Jacob came in from the country in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, ‘You are to sleep with me tonight; I have hired you with my son's mandrakes.’ 17   That night he slept with her, and God heard Leah's prayer, and she conceived and bore a fifth son. 18   Leah said, ‘God has rewarded me, because I gave my slave-girl to my husband.’ So she named him Issachar. ^note 19   Leah again conceived and bore a sixth son. She said, ‘God has endowed me with a noble dowry. 20   Now my husband will treat me in princely style, because I have borne him six sons.’ So she named him Zebulun. ^note 21   Later she bore a daughter and named her Dinah. 22   Then God thought of Rachel; he heard her prayer and gave her a child; 23   so she conceived and bore a son and said, ‘God has taken away my humiliation.’ 24   She named him Joseph, ^note saying, ‘May the Lord add another son!’

25   When Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, ‘Let me go, for I wish to return to my own home and country. 26   Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and I will go; for you know what service I have done for you.’ 27   Laban said to him, ‘Let me have my say, if you please. I have become prosperous and the Lord has blessed me for your sake. 28   So now tell me what I owe you in wages, and I will give it you.’ 29   Jacob answered, ‘You must know how I have served you, and how your herds have prospered under my care. 30   You had only a few when I came, but now they have increased beyond measure, and the Lord brought blessings to you wherever I went. But is it not time for me to provide for my family?’ 31   Laban said, ‘Then what shall I give you?’, but Jacob answered, ‘Give me nothing; I will mind your flocks ^note as before, if you will do what I suggest. 32   Today I will go over your flocks and pick out from them ^note every black lamb, and all the

Jacob and Esau brindled and the spotted goats, and they shall be my wages. 33   This is a fair offer, and it will be to my own disadvantage later on, when we come to settling my wages: every goat amongst mine that is not spotted or brindled and every lamb that is not black will have been stolen.’ 34    35   Laban said, ‘Agreed; let it be as you have said.’ But that day he removed the he-goats that were striped and brindled and all the spotted and brindled she-goats, all that had any white on them, and every ram that was black, and he handed them over to his own sons. 36   Then he put a distance of three days' journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob was left tending those of Laban's flocks that remained. 37   Thereupon Jacob took fresh rods of white poplar, almond, and plane tree, and peeled off strips of bark, exposing the white of the rods. 38   Then he fixed the peeled rods upright in the troughs at the watering-places where the flocks came to drink; they faced the she-goats that were on heat when they came to drink. 39   They felt a longing for the rods and they gave birth to young that were striped and spotted and brindled. 40   As for the rams, Jacob divided them, and let the ewes run only with such of the rams in Laban's flocks as were striped and black; and thus he bred separate flocks for himself, which he did not add to Laban's sheep. 41   As for the goats, whenever the more vigorous were on heat, he put the rods in front of them at the troughs so that they would long for the rods; 42   he did not put them there for the weaker goats. Thus the weaker came to be Laban's and the stronger Jacob's. 43   So Jacob increased in wealth more and more until he possessed great flocks, male and female slaves, camels, and asses.

1   Jacob learnt that Laban's sons were saying, ‘Jacob has taken everything that was our father's, and all his wealth has come from our father's property.’ 2   He also noticed that Laban was not so well disposed to him as he had once been. 3   Then the Lord said to Jacob, ‘Go back to the land of your fathers and to your kindred. I will be with you.’ 4   So Jacob sent to fetch Rachel and Leah to his flocks out in the country and said to them, 5   ‘I see that your father is not as well disposed to me as once he was; yet the God of my father has been with me. 6   You know how I have served your father to the best of my power, 7   but he has cheated me and changed my wages ten times over. Yet God did not let him do me any harm. 8   If Laban said, “The spotted ones shall be your wages”, then all the flock bore spotted young; and if he said, “The striped ones shall be your wages”, then all the flock bore striped young. 9    10   God has taken away your father's property and has given it to me. In the season when the flocks were on heat, I had a dream: I looked up and saw that the he-goats mounting the flock were striped and spotted and dappled. 11   The angel of God said to me in my dream, “Jacob”, and I

Jacob and Esau replied, “Here I am”, and he said, “Look up and see: 12   all the he-goats mounting the flock are striped and spotted and dappled. I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. 13   I am the God who appeared to you at ^note Bethel where you anointed a sacred pillar and where you made your vow. Now leave this country at once and return to the land of your birth.”’ 14   Rachel and Leah answered him, ‘We no longer have any part or lot in our father's house. 15   Does he not look on us as foreigners, now that he has sold us and spent on himself the whole of the money paid for us? 16   But all the wealth which God has saved from our father's clutches is ours and our children's. Now do everything that God has said.’ 17    18   Jacob at once set his sons and his wives on camels, and drove off all the herds and livestock ^note which he had acquired in Paddan-aram, to go to his father Isaac in Canaan.

19   When Laban the Aramaean had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father's household gods, ^note 20   and Jacob deceived Laban, keeping his departure secret. 21   So Jacob ran away with all that he had, crossed the River and made for the hill-country of Gilead. 22   Three days later, when Laban heard that Jacob had run away, 23   he took his kinsmen with him, pursued Jacob for seven days and caught up with him in the hill-country of Gilead. 24   But God came to Laban in a dream by night and said to him, ‘Be careful to say nothing to Jacob, either good or bad.’

25   When Laban overtook him, Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill-country of Gilead, and Laban pitched his in the company of his kinsmen in the same hill-country. 26   Laban said to Jacob, ‘What have you done? You have deceived me and carried off my daughters as though they were captives taken in war. 27   Why did you slip away secretly without telling me? I would have set you on your way with songs and the music of tambourines and harps. 28   You did not even let me kiss my daughters and their children. 29   In this you were at fault. It is in my power to do you an injury, but yesterday the God of your father spoke to me; he told me to be careful to say nothing to you, either good or bad. 30   I know that you went away because you were homesick and pining for your father's house, but why did you steal my gods?’

31   Jacob answered, ‘I was afraid; I thought you would take your daughters from me by force. 32   Whoever is found in possession of your gods shall die for it. Let our kinsmen here be witnesses: point out anything I have that is yours, and take it back.’ Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods. 33   So Laban went into Jacob's tent and Leah's tent and that of the two slave-girls, but he found nothing. When he came out of Leah's tent he went into Rachel's. 34   Now she had taken the household gods and put them in the camel-bag and was sitting on

Jacob and Esau them. Laban went through everything in the tent and found nothing. 35   Rachel said to her father, ‘Do not take it amiss, sir, that I cannot rise in your presence: the common lot of woman is upon me.’ So for all his search Laban did not find his household gods.

36   Jacob was angry, and he expostulated with Laban, exclaiming, ‘What have I done wrong? What is my offence, that you have come after me in hot pursuit and gone through all my possessions? 37   Have you found anything belonging to your household? If so, set it here in front of my kinsmen and yours, and let them judge between the two of us. 38   In all the twenty years I have been with you, your ewes and she-goats have never miscarried; 39   I have not eaten the rams of your flocks; I have never brought to you the body of any animal mangled by wild beasts, but I bore the loss myself; you claimed compensation from me for anything stolen by day or by night. 40   This was the way of it: by day the heat consumed me and the frost by night, and sleep deserted me. 41   For twenty years I have been in your household. I worked for you fourteen years to win your two daughters and six years for your flocks, and you changed my wages ten times over. 42   If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would have sent me away empty-handed. But God saw my labour and my hardships, and last night he rebuked you.’

43   Laban answered Jacob, ‘The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks; all that you see is mine. But as for my daughters, what can I do today about them and the children they have borne? 44   Come now, we will make an agreement, you and I, and let it stand as a witness between us.’ 45   So Jacob chose a great stone and set it upright as a sacred pillar. 46   Then he told his kinsmen to gather stones, and they took them and built a cairn, and there beside the cairn they ate together. 47   Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, ^note and Jacob called it Gal-ed. ^note 48   Laban said, ‘This cairn is witness today between you and me.’ 49   For this reason it was named Gal-ed; it was also named Mizpah, ^note for Laban said, ‘May the Lord watch between you and me, when we are parted from each other's sight. 50   If you ill-treat my daughters or take other wives beside them when no one is there to see, then God be witness between us.’ 51   Laban said further to Jacob, ‘Here is this cairn, and here the pillar which I have set up between us. 52   This cairn is witness and the pillar is witness: I for my part will not pass beyond this cairn to your side, and you for your part shall not pass beyond this cairn and this pillar to my side to do an injury, 53   otherwise the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor will judge between us.’ ^note And Jacob swore this oath in the name of the Fear of Isaac his father.

Jacob and Esau 54   He slaughtered an animal for sacrifice, there in the hill-country, and summoned his kinsmen to the feast. So they ate together and spent the night there.

55    ^noteLaban rose early in the morning, kissed his daughters and their children, blessed them and went home again.

1   Then Jacob continued his journey and was met by angels of God. 2   When he saw them, Jacob said, ‘This is the company of God’, and he called that place Mahanaim. ^note

3   Jacob sent messengers on ahead to his brother Esau to the district of Seir in the Edomite country, 4   and this is what he told them to say to Esau, ‘My lord, your servant Jacob says, I have been living with Laban and have stayed there till now. 5   I have oxen, asses, and sheep, and male and female slaves, and I have sent to tell you this, my lord, so that I may win your favour.’ 6   The messengers returned to Jacob and said, ‘We met your brother Esau already on the way to meet you with four hundred men.’ 7   Jacob, much afraid and distressed, divided the people with him, as well as the sheep, cattle, and camels, into two companies, thinking that, 8   if Esau should come upon one company and destroy it, the other company would survive. 9   Jacob said, ‘O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord at whose bidding I came back to my own country and to my kindred, and who didst promise me prosperity, 10   I am not worthy of all the true and steadfast love which thou hast shown to me thy servant. When I crossed the Jordan, I had nothing but the staff in my hand; now I have two companies. 11   Save me, I pray, from my brother Esau, for I am afraid that he may come and destroy me, sparing neither mother nor child. 12   But thou didst say, I will prosper you and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which is beyond all counting.’

13   Jacob spent that night there; and as a present for his brother Esau he chose from the herds he had with him two hundred she-goats, 14    twenty he-goats, 15   two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milch-camels with their young, forty cows and ten young bulls, twenty she-asses and ten he-asses. 16   He put each herd separately into the care of a servant and said to each, ‘Go on ahead of me, and leave gaps between the herds.’ 17   Then he gave these instructions to the first: ‘When my brother Esau meets you and asks you to whom you belong and where you are going and who owns these beasts you are driving, 18   you are to say, “They belong to your servant Jacob; he sends them as a present to my lord Esau, and he is behind us.”’ 19   He gave the same instructions to the second, to the third, and all the drovers, telling them to say the same thing to Esau when they met him. 20   And they were to add, ‘Your servant Jacob is behind us’; for he thought, ‘I will appease him with the present that I have sent on ahead, and afterwards, when I come into his

Jacob and Esau presence, he will perhaps receive me kindly.’ 21   So Jacob's present went on ahead of him, but he himself spent that night at Mahaneh.

22   During the night Jacob rose, took his two wives, his two slave-girls, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of Jabbok. 23   He took them and sent them across the gorge with all that he had. 24   So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him there till ^note daybreak. 25   When the man saw that he could not throw Jacob, he struck him in the hollow of his thigh, so that Jacob's hip was dislocated as they wrestled. 26   The man said, ‘Let me go, for day is breaking’, but Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’ 27   He said to Jacob, ‘What is your name?’, and he answered, ‘Jacob.’ 28   The man said, ‘Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, ^note because you strove with God and with men, and prevailed.’ Jacob said, ‘Tell me, I pray, your name.’ 29   He replied, ‘Why do you ask my name?’, but he gave him his blessing there. 30   Jacob called the place Peniel, ^note ‘because’, he said, ‘I have seen God face to face and my life is spared.’ 31   The sun rose as Jacob passed through Penuel, limping because of his hip. 32   This is why the Israelites to this day do not eat the sinew of the nerve that runs in the hollow of the thigh; for the man had struck Jacob on that nerve in the hollow of the thigh.

1   Jacob raised his eyes and saw Esau coming towards him with four hundred men; so he divided the children between Leah and Rachel and the two slave-girls. 2   He put the slave-girls with their children in front, Leah with her children next, and Rachel with Joseph last. 3   He then went on ahead of them, bowing low to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. 4   Esau ran to meet him and embraced him; he threw his arms round him and kissed him, and they wept. 5   When Esau looked up and saw the women and children, he said, ‘Who are these with you?’ Jacob replied, ‘The children whom God has graciously given to your servant.’ 6   The slave-girls came near, each with her children, and they bowed low. 7   Then Leah with her children came near and bowed low, and afterwards Joseph and Rachel came near and bowed low also. 8   Esau said, ‘What was all that company of yours that I met?’ And he answered, ‘It was meant to win favour with you, my lord.’ 9   Esau answered, ‘I have more than enough. Keep what is yours, my brother.’ 10   But Jacob said, ‘On no account: if I have won your favour, then, I pray, accept this gift from me; for, you see, I come into your presence as into that of a god, and you receive me favourably. 11   Accept this gift which I bring you; for God has been gracious to me, and I have all I want.’ So he urged him, and he accepted it.

12    13   Then Esau said, ‘Let us set out, and I will go at your pace.’ But Jacob answered him, ‘You must know, my lord, that the children are small; the flocks and herds are suckling their young and I am concerned

Jacob and Esau for them, and if the men overdrive them for a single day, all my beasts will die. 14   I beg you, my lord, to go on ahead, and I will go by easy stages at the pace of the children and of the livestock that I am driving, until I come to my lord in Seir.’ 15   Esau said, ‘Let me detail some of my own men to escort you’, but he replied, ‘Why should my lord be so kind to me?’ 16   That day Esau turned back towards Seir, but Jacob set out for Succoth; 17   and there he built himself a house and made shelters for his cattle. Therefore he named that place Succoth. ^note

18   On his journey from Paddan-aram, Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem in Canaan and pitched his tent to the east of it. 19   The strip of country where he had pitched his tent he bought from the sons of Hamor father of Shechem for a hundred sheep. ^note 20   There he set up an altar and called it El-Elohey-Israel. ^note

1   Dinah, the daughter whom Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the country, 2   and Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite the local prince, saw her; he took her, lay with her and dishonoured her. 3   But he remained true to Jacob's daughter Dinah; he loved the girl and comforted her. 4   So Shechem said to his father Hamor, ‘Get me this girl for a wife.’ 5   When Jacob heard that Shechem had violated his daughter Dinah, his sons were with the herds in the open country, so he said nothing until they came home. 6   Meanwhile Shechem's father Hamor came out to Jacob to discuss it with him. 7   When Jacob's sons came in from the country and heard, they were grieved and angry, because in lying with Jacob's daughter he had done what the Israelites held to be an outrage, an intolerable thing. 8   Hamor appealed to them in these terms: ‘My son Shechem is in love with this girl; I beg you to let him have her as his wife. 9   Let us ally ourselves in marriage; you shall give us your daughters, and you shall take ours in exchange. 10   You must settle among us. The country is open to you; make your home in it, move about freely and acquire land of your own.’ 11   And Shechem said to the girl's father and brothers, ‘I am eager to win your favour and I will give whatever you ask. 12   Fix the bride-price and the gift as high as you like, and I will give whatever you ask; but you must give me the girl in marriage.’

13   Jacob's sons gave a dishonest reply to Shechem and his father Hamor, laying a trap for them because Shechem had violated their sister Dinah: 14   ‘We cannot do this,’ they said; ‘we cannot give our sister to a man who is uncircumcised; for we look on that as a disgrace. 15   There is one condition on which we will consent: if you will follow our example and have every male among you circumcised, 16   we will give you

Jacob and Esau our daughters and take yours for ourselves. Then we can live among you, and we shall all become one people. 17   But if you refuse to listen to us and be circumcised, we will take the girl and go away.’ 18   Their proposal pleased Hamor and his son Shechem; 19   and the young man, who was held in respect above anyone in his father's house, did not hesitate to do what they had said, because his heart was taken by Jacob's daughter.

20   So Hamor and Shechem went back to the city gate and addressed their fellow-citizens: 21   ‘These men are friendly to us; let them live in our country and move freely in it. The land has room enough for them. Let us marry their daughters and give them ours. 22   But these men will agree to live with us and become one people on this one condition only: every male among us must be circumcised as they have been. 23   Will not their herds, their livestock, and all their chattels then be ours? We need only consent to their condition, and then they are free to live with us.’ 24   All the able-bodied ^note men agreed with Hamor and Shechem, and every single one of them was circumcised, every able-bodied male. 25   Then two days later, while they were still in great pain, Jacob's two sons Simeon and Levi, full brothers to Dinah, armed themselves with swords, boldly entered the city and killed every male. 26   They cut down Hamor and his son Shechem and took Dinah from Shechem's house and went off with her. 27   Then Jacob's other ^note sons came in over the dead bodies and plundered the city, to avenge their sister's dishonour. 28   They seized flocks, cattle, asses, and everything, both inside the city and outside in the open country; 29   they also carried off all their possessions, their dependants, and their women, and plundered everything in the houses.

30   Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, ‘You have brought trouble on me, you have made my name stink among the people of the country, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. My numbers are few; if they muster against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, I and my household with me.’ 31   They answered, ‘Is our sister to be treated as a common whore?’

1   God said to Jacob, ‘Go up to Bethel and settle there; build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you were running away from your brother Esau.’ 2   So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, ‘Rid yourselves of the foreign gods which you have among you, purify yourselves, and see your clothes are mended. ^note 3   We are going to Bethel, so that I can set up an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress, and who has been with me all the way that I have come.’ 4   So they handed over to Jacob all the foreign gods in their possession and the rings from their ears, and he buried

Jacob and Esau them under the terebinth-tree near Shechem. 5   Then they set out, and the cities round about were panic-stricken, and the inhabitants dared not pursue the sons of Jacob. 6   Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz, that is Bethel, in Canaan. 7   There he built an altar, and he called the place El-bethel, because it was there that God had revealed himself to him when he was running away from his brother. 8   Rebecca's nurse Deborah died and was buried under the oak below Bethel, and he named it Allon-bakuth. ^note

9   Go appeared again to Jacob when he came back from Paddan-aram and blessed him. 10   God said to him:

  ‘Jacob is your name,
  but your name shall no longer be Jacob:
  Israel shall be your name.’

11   So he named him Israel. And God said to him:

  ‘I am God Almighty.
  Be fruitful and increase as a nation;
  a host of nations shall come from you,
  and kings shall spring from your body.
   12   The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you;
  and to your descendants after you I give this land.’

13    14   God then left him, ^note and Jacob erected a sacred pillar in the place where God had spoken with him, a pillar of stone, and he offered a drink-offering over it and poured oil on it. 15   Jacob called the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.

16   They set out from Bethel, and when there was still some distance to go to Ephrathah, Rachel was in labour and her pains were severe. 17   While her pains were upon her, the midwife said, ‘Do not be afraid, this is another son for you.’ 18   Then with her last breath, as she was dying, she named him Ben-oni, ^note but his father called him Benjamin. ^note 19   So Rachel died and was buried by the side of the road to Ephrathah, that is Bethlehem. 20   Jacob set up a sacred pillar over her grave; it is known to this day as the Pillar of Rachel's Grave. 21   Then Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent on the other side of Migdal-eder. 22   While Israel was living in that district, Reuben went and lay with his father's concubine Bilhah, and Israel came to hear of it.

23   The sons of Jacob were twelve. The sons of Leah: Jacob's first-born Reuben, then Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun. 24   The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. 25   The sons of Rachel's slave-girl Bilhah:

Jacob and Esau Dan and Naphtali. 26   The sons of Leah's slave-girl Zilpah: Gad and Asher. 27   These were Jacob's sons, born to him in Paddan-aram. Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre by Kiriath-arba, that is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac had dwelt. 28   Isaac had lived for a hundred and eighty years when he breathed his last. 29   He died and was gathered to his father's kin at a very great age, and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

1   This is the table of the descendants of Esau: that is Edom. 2   Esau took Canaanite women in marriage, Adah daughter of Elon the Hittite and Oholibamah daughter of Anah son ^note of Zibeon the Horite, ^note and Basemath, 3   Ishmael's daughter, sister of Nebaioth.

4    ^note 5   Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau; Basemath bore Reuel, and Oholibamah bore Jeush, Jalam and Korah. These were Esau's sons, born to him in Canaan. 6   Esau took his wives, his sons and daughters and everyone in his household, his herds, his cattle, and all the chattels that he had acquired in Canaan, and went to the district of Seir ^note out of the way of his brother Jacob, 7   because they had so much stock that they could not live together; the land where they were staying could not support them because of their herds. 8   So Esau lived in the hill-country of Seir. Esau is Edom.

9   This is the table of the descendants of Esau father of the Edomites in the hill-country of Seir.

10   These are the names of the sons of Esau: Eliphaz was the son of Esau's wife Adah. 11   Reuel was the son of Esau's wife Basemath. The sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam and Kenaz. 12   Timna was concubine to Esau's son Eliphaz, and she bore Amalek to him. These are the descendants of Esau's wife Adah. 13   These are the sons of Reuel: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah and Mizzah. These were the descendants of Esau's wife Basemath. 14   These were the sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah daughter of Anah son ^note of Zibeon. She bore him Jeush, Jalam and Korah.

15   These are the chiefs descended from Esau. The sons of Esau's eldest son Eliphaz: chief Teman, chief Omar, chief Zepho, chief Kenaz, chief Korah, chief Gatam, chief Amalek. 16   These are the chiefs descended from Eliphaz in Edom. These are the descendants of Adah.

17   These are the sons of Esau's son Reuel: chief Nahath, chief Zerah, chief Shammah, chief Mizzah. These are the chiefs descended from Reuel in Edom. These are the descendants of Esau's wife Basemath.

18   These are the sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah: chief Jeush, chief Jalam, chief Korah. These are the chiefs born to Oholibamah daughter of Anah wife of Esau.

Jacob and Esau

19   These are the sons of Esau, that is Edom, and these are their chiefs.

20   These are the sons of Seir the Horite, the original inhabitants of the land: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, Dishon, Ezer and Dishan. 21   These are the chiefs of the Horites, the sons of Seir in Edom. 22   The sons of Lotan were Hori and Hemam, and Lotan had a sister named Timna.

23   These are the sons of Shobal: Alvan, Manahath, Ebal, Shepho and Onam.

24   These are the sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah. This is the Anah who found some mules ^note in the wilderness while he was tending the asses of his father Zibeon. 25   These are the children of Anah: Dishon and Oholibamah daughter of Anah.

26   These are the children of Dishon: ^note Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran and Cheran. 27    28   These are the sons of Ezer: Bilhan, Zavan and Akan. These are the sons of Dishan: Uz and Aran.

29   These are the chiefs descended from the Horites: chief Lotan, chief Shobal, 30   chief Zibeon, chief Anah, chief Dishon, chief Ezer, chief Dishan. These are the chiefs that were descended from the Horites according to their clans in the district of Seir.

31    ^noteThese are the kings who ruled over Edom before there were kings in Israel: 32   Bela son of Beor became king in Edom, and his city was named Dinhabah; 33   when he died, he was succeeded by Jobab son of Zerah of Bozrah. 34   When Jobab died, he was succeeded by Husham of Teman. When Husham died, 35   he was succeeded by Hadad son of Bedad, who defeated Midian in Moabite country. His city was named Avith. 36    37   When Hadad died, he was succeeded by Samlah of Masrekah. When Samlah died, he was succeeded by Saul of Rehoboth on the River. 38    39   When Saul died, he was succeeded by Baal-hanan son of Akbor. When Baal-hanan died, he was succeeded by Hadar. ^noteHis city was named Pau; his wife's name was Mehetabel daughter of Matred a woman of Me-zahab. ^note

40   These are the names of the chiefs descended from Esau, according to their families, their places, by name: chief Timna, chief Alvah, chief Jetheth, 41    42   chief Oholibamah, chief Elah, chief Pinon, chief Kenaz, chief Teman, chief Mibzar, chief Magdiel, and chief Iram: 43   all chiefs of Edom according to their settlements in the land which they possessed. (Esau is the father of the Edomites.)

Joseph in Egypt

1   So Jacob lived in Canaan, the country in which his father had settled. 2   And this is the story of the descendants of Jacob.

When Joseph was a boy of seventeen, he used to accompany his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives, when they were in charge of the flock; and he brought their father a bad report of them. 3   Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was a child of his old age, and he made him a long, sleeved robe. 4   When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not say a kind word to him.

5   Joseph had a dream; and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him still more. 6   He said to them, ‘Listen to this dream I have had. 7   We were in the field binding sheaves, and my sheaf rose on end and stood upright, and your sheaves gathered round and bowed low before my sheaf.’ 8   His brothers answered him, ‘Do you think you will one day be a king and lord it over us?’ and they hated him still more because of his dreams and what he said. 9   He had another dream, which he told to his father and ^note his brothers. He said, ‘Listen: I have had another dream. 10   The sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.’ When he told it to his father and his brothers, his father took him to task: ‘What is this dream of yours?’ he said. ‘Must we come and bow low to the ground before you, I and your mother and your brothers?’ 11   His brothers were jealous of him, but his father did not forget.

12   Joseph's brothers went to mind their father's flocks in Shechem. 13   Israel said to him, ‘Your brothers are minding the flocks in Shechem; come, I will send you to them’, and he said, ‘I am ready.’ 14   He said to him, ‘Go and see if all is well with your brothers and the sheep, and bring me back word.’ So he sent off Joseph from the vale of Hebron and he came to Shechem. 15   A man met him wandering in the open country and asked him what he was looking for. 16   He replied, ‘I am looking for my brothers. 17   Tell me, please, where they are minding the flocks.’ The man said, ‘They have gone away from here; I heard them speak of going to Dothan.’ So Joseph followed his brothers and he found them in Dothan. 18   They saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. 19   They said to each other, ‘Here comes that dreamer. 20   Now is our chance; let us kill him and throw him into one of these pits and say that a wild beast has devoured him. Then we shall see what will come of his dreams.’ 21   When Reuben heard, he came to his rescue, urging them not to take his life. 22   ‘Let us have no bloodshed’, he

Joseph in Egypt said. ‘Throw him into this pit in the wilderness, but do him no bodily harm.’ He meant to save him from them so as to restore him to his father. 23   When Joseph came up to his brothers, they stripped him of the long, 24   sleeved robe which he was wearing, took him and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty and had no water in it.

25   Then they sat down to eat some food and, looking up, they saw an Ishmaelite caravan coming in from Gilead on the way down to Egypt, with camels carrying gum tragacanth and balm and myrrh. 26   Judah said to his brothers, ‘What shall we gain by killing our brother and concealing his death? 27   Why not sell him to the Ishmaelites? Let us do him no harm, for he is our brother, our own flesh and blood’; and his brothers agreed with him. 28   Meanwhile some Midianite merchants passed by and drew Joseph up out of the pit. They sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, and they brought Joseph to Egypt. 29   When Reuben went back to the pit, Joseph was not there. 30   He rent his clothes and went back to his brothers and said, ‘The boy is not there. Where can I go?’

31   Joseph's brothers took his robe, killed a goat and dipped it in the goat's blood. 32   Then they tore the robe, the long, sleeved robe, brought it to their father and said, ‘Look what we have found. Do you recognize it? 33   Is this your son's robe or not?’ Jacob did recognize it, and he replied, ‘It is my son's robe. A wild beast has devoured him. Joseph has been torn to pieces.’ 34   Jacob rent his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned his son for a long time. 35   His sons and daughters all tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, ‘I will go to my grave ^note mourning for my son.’ 36   Thus Joseph's father wept for him. Meanwhile the Midianites had sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's eunuchs, the captain of the guard. ^note

1   About that time Judah left his brothers and went south and pitched his tent in company with an Adullamite named Hirah. 2   There he saw Bathshua the daughter of a Canaanite ^note and married her. He slept with her, and she conceived and bore a son, whom she ^note called Er. 3    4   She conceived again and bore a son whom she called Onan. 5   Once more she conceived and bore a son whom she called Shelah, and she ^note ceased to bear children ^note when she had given birth to him. 6   Judah found a wife for his eldest son Er; her name was Tamar. 7   But Judah's eldest son Er was wicked in the Lord's sight, and the Lord took his life. 8   Then Judah told Onan to sleep with his brother's wife, to do his duty as the husband's brother and raise up issue for his brother. 9   But Onan knew that the issue would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother's

Joseph in Egypt wife, he spilled his seed on the ground so as not to raise up issue for his brother. 10   What he did was wicked in the Lord's sight, and the Lord took his life. 11   Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, ‘Remain as a widow in your father's house until my son Shelah grows up’; for he was afraid that he too would die like his brothers. So Tamar went and stayed in her father's house.

12   Time passed, and Judah's wife Bathshua died. When he had finished mourning, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went up to Timnath at sheep-shearing. 13   When Tamar was told that her father-in-law was on his way to shear his sheep at Timnath, 14   she took off her widow's weeds, veiled her face, perfumed herself and sat where the road forks in two directions on the way to Timnath. She did this because she knew that Shelah had grown up and she had not been given to him as a wife. 15   When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, although she had veiled her face. 16   He turned to her where she sat by the roadside and said, ‘Let me lie with you’, not knowing that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, ‘What will you give me to lie with me?’ 17   He answered, ‘I will send you a kid from my flock’, but she said, ‘Will you give me a pledge until you send it?’ 18   He asked what pledge he should give her, and she replied, ‘Your seal and its cord, and the staff which you hold in your hand.’ So he gave them to her and lay with her, and she conceived. 19   She then rose and went home, took off her veil and resumed her widow's weeds. 20   Judah sent the kid by his friend the Adullamite in order to recover the pledge from the woman, but he could not find her. 21   He asked the men of that place, ‘Where is that temple-prostitute, the one who was sitting where the road forks?’, but they answered, ‘There is no temple-prostitute here.’ 22   So he went back to Judah and told him that he had not found her and that the men of the place had said there was no such prostitute there. 23   Judah said, ‘Let her keep my pledge, or we shall get a bad name. I did send a kid, but you could not find her.’ 24   About three months later Judah was told that his daughter-in-law Tamar had behaved like a common prostitute and through her wanton conduct was with child. Judah said, ‘Bring her out so that she may be burnt.’ 25   But when she was brought out, she sent to her father-in-law and said, ‘The father of my child is the man to whom these things belong. See if you recognize whose they are, the engraving on the seal, the pattern of the cord, and the staff.’ 26   Judah recognized them and said, ‘She is more in the right than I am, because I did not give her to my son Shelah.’ He did not have intercourse with her again. 27    28   When her time was come, there were twins in her womb, and while she was in labour one of them put out a hand. The midwife took a scarlet thread and fastened it round the wrist, saying, ‘This one appeared first.’ 29   No sooner had he drawn back his hand, than his brother came

Joseph in Egypt out and the midwife said, ‘What! you have broken out first!’ So he was named Perez. ^note 30   Soon afterwards his brother was born with the scarlet thread on his wrist, and he was named Zerah. ^note

1   When Joseph was taken down to Egypt, he was bought by Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's eunuchs, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian. Potiphar bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there. 2   The Lord was with Joseph and he prospered. He lived in the house of his Egyptian master, 3   who saw that the Lord was with him and was giving him success in all that he undertook. 4   Thus Joseph found favour with his master, and he became his personal servant. Indeed, his master put him in charge of his household and entrusted him with all that he had. 5   From the time that he put him in charge of his household and all his property, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's household for Joseph's sake. The blessing of the Lord was on all that was his in house and field. 6   He left everything he possessed in Joseph's care, and concerned himself with nothing but the food he ate.

7   Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking, and a time came when his master's wife took notice of him and said, ‘Come and lie with me.’ 8   But he refused and said to her, ‘Think of my master. He does not know as much as I do about his own house, and he has entrusted me with all he has. 9   He has given me authority in this house second only to his own, and has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. 10   How can I do anything so wicked, and sin against God?’ She kept asking Joseph day after day, but he refused to lie with her and be in her company. 11   One day he came into the house as usual to do his work, when none of the men of the household were there indoors. 12   She caught him by his cloak, saying, ‘Come and lie with me’, but he left the cloak in her hands and ran out of the house. 13   When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hands and had run out of the house, 14   she called out to the men of the household, ‘Look at this! My husband has brought in a Hebrew to make a mockery of us. He came in here to lie with me, but I gave a loud scream. 15   When he heard me scream and call out, he left his cloak in my hand and ran off.’ 16   She kept his cloak with her until his master came home, and then she repeated her tale. 17   She said, ‘That Hebrew slave whom you brought in to make a mockery of me, has been here with me. 18   But when I screamed for help and called out, he left his cloak in my hands and ran off.’ 19   When Joseph's master heard his wife's story of what his slave had done to her, he was furious. 20   He took Joseph and put him in the Round Tower, where the king's prisoners were kept; and there he stayed in the Round Tower. 21   But the Lord was with Joseph and kept faith with him, so that he won the favour of the

Joseph in Egypt governor of the Round Tower. 22   He put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners in the tower and of all their work. ^note 23   He ceased to concern himself with anything entrusted to Joseph, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in everything.

1   It happened later that the king's butler and his baker offended their master the king of Egypt. 2   Pharaoh was angry with these two eunuchs, the chief butler and the chief baker, 3   and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the Round Tower where Joseph was imprisoned. 4   The captain of the guard appointed Joseph as their attendant, and he waited on them. 5   One night, when they had been in prison for some time, they both had dreams, each needing its own interpretation—the king of Egypt's butler and his baker who were imprisoned in the Round Tower. 6   When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they looked dejected. 7   So he asked these eunuchs, who were in custody with him in his master's house, why they were so downcast that day. 8   They replied, ‘We have each had a dream and there is no one to interpret it for us.’ Joseph said to them, ‘Does not interpretation belong to God? 9   Tell me your dreams.’ So the chief butler told Joseph his dream: ‘In my dream’, he said, ‘there was a vine in front of me. 10   On the vine there were three branches, and as soon as it budded, it blossomed and its clusters ripened into grapes. 11   Now I had Pharaoh's cup in my hand, and I plucked the grapes, crushed them into Pharaoh's cup and put the cup into Pharaoh's hand.’ 12   Joseph said to him, ‘This is the interpretation. The three branches are three days: within three days Pharaoh will raise you ^note and restore you to your post, 13    and then you will put the cup into Pharaoh's hand as you used to do when you were his butler. 14   But when things go well with you, if you think of me, keep faith with me and bring my case to Pharaoh's notice and help me to get out of this house. 15   By force I was carried off ^note from the land of the Hebrews, and I have done nothing here to deserve being put in this dungeon.’

16   When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favourable interpretation, he said to him, ‘I too had a dream, and in my dream there were three baskets of white bread on my head. 17   In the top basket there was every kind of food which the baker prepares for Pharaoh, and the birds were eating out of the top basket on my head.’ 18   Joseph answered, ‘This is the interpretation. 19   The three baskets are three days: within three days Pharaoh will raise you ^note and hang you up on a tree, and the birds of the air will eat your flesh.’

20   The third day was Pharaoh's birthday and he gave a feast for all his servants. He raised ^note the chief butler and the chief baker in the

Joseph in Egypt presence of his court. 21   He restored the chief butler to his post, and the butler put the cup into Pharaoh's hand; 22   but he hanged the chief baker. All went as Joseph had said in interpreting the dreams for them. 23   Even so the chief butler did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.

1   Nearly two years later Pharaoh had a dream: he was standing by the Nile, 2   and there came up from the river seven cows, sleek and fat, and they grazed on the reeds. 3   After them seven other cows came up from the river, gaunt and lean, and stood on the river-bank beside the first cows. 4   The cows that were gaunt and lean devoured the cows that were sleek and fat. 5   Then Pharaoh woke up. He fell asleep again and had a second dream: he saw seven ears of corn, full and ripe, growing on one stalk. 6   Growing up after them were seven other ears, thin and shrivelled by the east wind. 7   The thin ears swallowed up the ears that were full and ripe. 8   Then Pharaoh woke up and knew that it was a dream. When morning came, Pharaoh was troubled in mind; so he summoned all the magicians and sages of Egypt. He told them his dreams, ^note but there was no one who could interpret them for him. 9   Then Pharaoh's chief butler spoke up and said, ‘It is time for me to recall my faults. 10   Once Pharaoh was angry with his servants, and he imprisoned me and the chief baker in the house of the captain of the guard. 11   One night we both had dreams, each needing its own interpretation. 12   We had with us a young Hebrew, a slave of the captain of the guard, and we told him our dreams and he interpreted them for us, giving each man's dream its own interpretation. 13   Each dream came true as it had been interpreted to us: I was restored to my position, and he was hanged.’

14   Pharaoh thereupon sent for Joseph, and they hurriedly brought him out of the dungeon. He shaved and changed his clothes, and came in to Pharaoh. 15   Pharaoh said to him, ‘I have had a dream, and no one can interpret it to me. I have heard it said that you can understand and interpret dreams.’ 16   Joseph answered, ‘Not I, but God, will answer for Pharaoh's welfare.’ 17   Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘In my dream I was standing on the bank of the Nile, 18   and there came up from the river seven cows, fat and sleek, and they grazed on the reeds. 19   After them seven other cows came up that were poor, very gaunt and lean; I have never seen such gaunt creatures in all Egypt. 20   These lean, gaunt cows devoured the first cows, the fat ones. 21   They were swallowed up, but no one could have guessed that they were in the bellies of the others, which looked as gaunt as before. 22   Then I woke up. After I had fallen asleep again, ^note I saw in a dream seven ears of corn, full and ripe, growing on one stalk. 23   Growing up after them were seven other ears, shrivelled, thin, and blighted by the east wind. 24   The thin ears swallowed up the

Joseph in Egypt seven ripe ears. When I told all this to the magicians, no one could explain it to me.’

25   Joseph said to Pharaoh, ‘Pharaoh's dreams are one dream. God has told Pharaoh what he is going to do. 26   The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good ears of corn are seven years. It is all one dream. 27   The seven lean and gaunt cows that came up after them are seven years, and the empty ears of corn blighted by the east wind will be seven years of famine. 28   It is as I have said to Pharaoh: God has let Pharaoh see what he is going to do. 29   There are to be seven years of great plenty throughout the land. 30   After them will come seven years of famine; all the years of plenty in Egypt will be forgotten, and the famine will ruin the country. 31   The good years will not be remembered in the land because of the famine that follows; for it will be very severe. 32   The doubling of Pharaoh's dream means that God is already resolved to do this, and he will very soon put it into effect. 33   Pharaoh should now look for a shrewd and intelligent man, and put him in charge of the country. 34   This is what Pharaoh should do: appoint controllers over the land, and take one fifth of the produce of Egypt during the seven years of plenty. 35   They should collect all this food produced in the good years that are coming and put the corn under Pharaoh's control in store in the cities, and keep it under guard. 36   This food will be a reserve for the country against the seven years of famine which will come upon Egypt. Thus the country will not be devastated by the famine.’

37    38   The plan pleased Pharaoh and all his courtiers, and he said to them, ‘Can we find a man like this man, one who has the spirit of a god ^note in him?’ 39   He said to Joseph, ‘Since a god ^note has made all this known to you, there is no one so shrewd and intelligent as you. 40   You shall be in charge of my household, and all my people will depend on your every word. 41   Only my royal throne shall make me greater than you.’ Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘I hereby give you authority over the whole land of Egypt.’ 42   He took off his signet-ring and put it on Joseph's finger, he had him dressed in fine linen, and hung a gold chain round his neck. 43   He mounted him in his viceroy's chariot and men cried ‘Make way!’ ^note before him. 44   Thus Pharaoh made him ruler over all Egypt and said to him, ‘I am the Pharaoh. Without your consent no man shall lift hand or foot throughout Egypt.’ 45   Pharaoh named him Zaphenath-paneah, and he gave him as wife Asenath the daughter of Potiphera priest of On. And Joseph's authority extended over the whole of Egypt.

46   Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. When he took his leave of the king, he made a tour of inspection through the country. 47   During the seven years of plenty there were abundant harvests, 48   and Joseph gathered all the food produced in

Joseph in Egypt Egypt during those years and stored it in the cities, putting in each the food from the surrounding country. 49   He stored the grain in huge quantities; it was like the sand of the sea, so much that he stopped measuring: it was beyond all measure.

50   Before the years of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph by Asenath the daughter of Potiphera priest of On. 51   He named the elder Manasseh, ^note ‘for’, he said, ‘God has caused me to forget all my troubles and my father's family.’ 52   He named the second Ephraim, ^note ‘for’, he said, ‘God has made me fruitful in the land of my hardships.’ 53   When the seven years of plenty in Egypt came to an end, 54   seven years of famine began, as Joseph had foretold. There was famine in every country, but throughout Egypt there was bread. 55   So when the famine spread through all Egypt, the people appealed to Pharaoh for bread, and he ordered them to go to Joseph and do as he told them. 56   In every region there was famine, and Joseph opened all the granaries and sold corn to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe. 57   The whole world came to Egypt to buy corn from Joseph, so severe was the famine everywhere.

1   When Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, he said to his sons, ‘Why do you stand staring at each other? 2   I have heard that there is corn in Egypt. Go down and buy some so that we may keep ourselves alive and not starve.’ 3   So Joseph's brothers, ten of them, went down to buy grain from Egypt, 4   but Jacob did not let Joseph's brother Benjamin go with them, for fear that he might come to harm.

5   So the sons of Israel came down with everyone else to buy corn, because of the famine in Canaan. 6   Now Joseph was governor of all Egypt, and it was he who sold the corn to all the people of the land. 7   Joseph's brothers came and bowed to the ground before him, and when he saw his brothers, he recognized them but pretended not to know them and spoke harshly to them. ‘Where do you come from?’ he asked. 8   ‘From Canaan,’ they answered, ‘to buy food.’ Although Joseph had recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. 9   He remembered also the dreams he had had about them; so he said to them, ‘You are spies; you have come to spy out the weak points in our defences.’ 10   They answered, ‘No, sir: your servants have come to buy food. 11   We are all sons of one man. Your humble servants are honest men, we are not spies.’ 12   ‘No,’ he insisted, ‘it is to spy out our weaknesses that you have come.’ 13   They answered him, ‘Sir, there are twelve of us, all brothers, sons of one man in Canaan. The youngest is still with our father, and one has disappeared.’ 14   But Joseph said again to them, ‘No, as I said before, you are spies. 15   This is how you shall be put to the proof: unless your youngest brother comes here, by the life of Pharaoh, you

Joseph in Egypt shall not leave this place. 16   Send one of your number to bring your brother; the rest will be kept in prison. Thus your story will be tested, and we shall see whether you are telling the truth. If not, then, by the life of Pharaoh, you must be spies.’ 17   So he kept them in prison for three days.

18   On the third day Joseph said to the brothers, ‘Do what I say and your lives will be spared; for I am a God-fearing man: 19   if you are honest men, your brother there shall be kept in prison, and the rest of you 20   shall take corn for your hungry households and bring your youngest brother to me; thus your words will be proved true, and you will not die.’ ^note

21   They said to one another, ‘No doubt we deserve to be punished because of our brother, whose suffering we saw; for when he pleaded with us we refused to listen. That is why these sufferings have come upon us.’ 22   But Reuben said, ‘Did I not tell you not to do the boy a wrong? But you would not listen, and his blood is on our heads, and we must pay.’ 23   They did not know that Joseph understood, because he had used an interpreter. 24   Joseph turned away from them and wept. Then, turning back, he played a trick on them. First he took Simeon and bound him before their eyes; 25   then he gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to return each man's silver, putting it in his sack, and to give them supplies for the journey. 26   All this was done; and they loaded the corn on to their asses and went away. 27   When they stopped for the night, one of them opened his sack to give fodder to his ass, and there he saw his silver at the top of the pack. 28   He said to his brothers, ‘My silver has been returned to me, and here it is in my pack.’ Bewildered and trembling, they said to each other, ‘What is this that God has done to us?’

29   When they came to their father Jacob in Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them. 30   They said, ‘The man who is lord of the country spoke harshly to us and made out that we were spies. 31   We said to him, “We are honest men, we are not spies. 32   There are twelve of us, all brothers, sons of one father. One has disappeared, and the youngest is with our father in Canaan.” 33   This man, the lord of the country, said to us, “This is how I shall find out if you are honest men. Leave one of your brothers with me, take food ^note for your hungry households and go. 34   Bring your youngest brother to me, and I shall know that you are not spies, but honest men. Then I will restore your brother to you, and you can move about the country freely.”’ 35   But on emptying their sacks, each of them found his silver inside, and when they and their father saw the bundles of silver, they were afraid. 36   Their father Jacob said to them, ‘You have robbed me of my children. Joseph has disappeared;

Joseph in Egypt Simeon has disappeared; and now you are taking Benjamin. Everything is against me.’ 37   Reuben said to his father, ‘You may kill both my sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my charge, and I shall bring him back.’ 38   But Jacob said, ‘My son shall not go with you, for his brother is dead and he alone is left. If he comes to any harm on the journey, you will bring down my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave.’ ^note

1    2   The famine was still severe in the country. When they had used up the corn they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, ‘Go back and buy a little more corn for us to eat.’ 3   But Judah replied, ‘The man plainly warned us that we must not go into his presence unless our brother was with us. 4   If you let our brother go with us, we will go down and buy food for you. 5   But if you will not let him, we will not go; for the man said to us, “You shall not come into my presence, unless your brother is with you.”’ 6   Israel said, ‘Why have you treated me so badly? 7   Why did you tell the man that you had yet another brother?’ They answered, ‘He questioned us closely about ourselves and our family: “Is your father still alive?” he asked, “Have you a brother?”, and we answered his questions. How could we possibly know that he would tell us to bring our brother to Egypt?’ 8   Judah said to his father Israel, ‘Send the boy with me; then we can start at once. By doing this we shall save our lives, ours, yours, and our dependants', and none of us will starve. 9   I will go surety for him and you may hold me responsible. If I do not bring him back and restore him to you, you shall hold me guilty all my life. 10   If we had not wasted all this time, by now we could have gone back twice over.’

11   Their father Israel said to them, ‘If it must be so, then do this: take in your baggage, as a gift for the man, some of the produce for which our country is famous: a little balsam, a little honey, gum tragacanth, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds. 12   Take double the amount of silver and restore what was returned to you in your packs; perhaps it was a mistake. 13   Take your brother with you and go straight back to the man. 14   May God Almighty make him kindly disposed to you, and may he send back the one ^note whom you left behind, and Benjamin too. As for me, if I am bereaved, then I am bereaved.’ 15   So they took the gift and double the amount of silver, and with Benjamin they started at once for Egypt, where they presented themselves to Joseph.

16   When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to his steward, ‘Bring these men indoors, kill a beast and make dinner ready, for they will eat with me at noon.’ 17   He did as Joseph told him and brought the men into the house. 18   When they came in they were afraid, for they thought, ‘We have been brought in here because of that affair of the silver which was replaced in our packs the first time. He means to

Joseph in Egypt trump up some charge against us and victimize us, seize our asses and make us his slaves.’ 19   So they approached Joseph's steward and spoke to him at the door of the house. 20   They said, ‘Please listen, my lord. After our first visit to buy food, 21   when we reached the place where we were to spend the night, we opened our packs and each of us found his silver in full weight at the top of his pack. We have brought it back with us, and have added other silver to buy food. 22   We do not know who put the silver in our packs.’ 23   He answered, ‘Set your minds at rest; do not be afraid. It was your God, the God of your father, ^note who hid treasure for you in your packs. I did receive the silver.’ Then he brought Simeon out to them.

24   The steward brought them into Joseph's house and gave them water to wash their feet, and provided fodder for their asses. 25   They had their gifts ready when Joseph arrived at noon, for they had heard that they were to eat there. 26   When Joseph came into the house, they presented him with the gifts which they had brought, bowing to the ground before him. 27   He asked them how they were and said, ‘Is your father well, the old man of whom you spoke? 28   Is he still alive?’ They answered, ‘Yes, my lord, our father is still alive and well.’ And they bowed low and prostrated themselves. 29   Joseph looked and saw his own mother's son, his brother Benjamin, and asked, ‘Is this your youngest brother, of whom you told me?’, and to Benjamin he said, ‘May God be gracious to you, my son!’ 30   Joseph was overcome; his feelings for his brother mastered him, and he was near to tears. So he went into the inner room and wept. 31   Then he washed his face and came out; and, holding back his feelings, he ordered the meal to be served. 32   They served him by himself, and the brothers by themselves, and the Egyptians who were at dinner were also served separately; for Egyptians hold it an abomination to eat with Hebrews. 33   The brothers were seated in his presence, the eldest first according to his age and so on down to the youngest: they looked at one another in astonishment. 34   Joseph sent them each a portion from what was before him, but Benjamin's was five times larger than any of the other portions. Thus they drank with him and all grew merry.

1   Joseph gave his steward this order: ‘Fill the men's packs with as much food as they can carry and put each man's silver at the top of his pack. 2   And put my goblet, my silver goblet, at the top of the youngest brother's pack with the silver for the corn.’ He did as Joseph said. 3   At daybreak the brothers were allowed to take their asses and go on their journey; 4   but before they had gone very far from the city, Joseph said to his steward, ‘Go after those men at once, and when you catch up with them, say, “Why have you repaid good with evil? 5   Why have you

Joseph in Egypt stolen the silver goblet? ^noteIt is the one from which my lord drinks, and which he uses for divination. 6   You have done a wicked thing.”’ When he caught up with them, 7   he repeated all this to them, but they replied, ‘My lord, how can you say such things? No, sir, God forbid that we should do any such thing! 8   You remember the silver we found at the top of our packs? We brought it back to you from Canaan. Why should we steal silver or gold from your master's house? 9   If any one of us is found with the goblet, he shall die; and, what is more, my lord, we will all become your slaves.’ 10   He said, ‘Very well, then; I accept what you say. The man in whose possession it is found shall be my slave, but the rest of you shall go free.’ 11   Each man quickly lowered his pack to the ground and opened it. 12   The steward searched them, beginning with the eldest and finishing with the youngest, and the goblet was found in Benjamin's pack.

13   At this they rent their clothes; then each man loaded his ass and they returned to the city. 14   Joseph was still in the house when Judah and his brothers came in. They threw themselves on the ground before him, and Joseph said, ‘What have you done? 15   You might have known that a man like myself would practise divination.’ 16   Judah said, ‘What shall we say, my lord? What can we say to prove our innocence? God has found out our sin. Here we are, my lord, ready to be made your slaves, we ourselves as well as the one who was found with the goblet.’ 17   Joseph answered, ‘God forbid that I should do such a thing! The one who was found with the goblet shall become my slave, but the rest of you can go home to your father in peace.’

18   Then Judah went up to him and said, ‘Please listen, my lord. Let me say a word to your lordship, I beg. Do not be angry with me, for you are as great as Pharaoh. 19   You, my lord, asked us whether we had a father or a brother. 20   We answered, “We have an aged father, and he has a young son born in his old age; this boy's full brother is dead and he alone is left of his mother's children, ^note he alone, and his father loves him.” 21   Your lordship answered, “Bring him down to me so that I may set eyes on him.” 22   We told you, my lord, that the boy could not leave his father, and that his father would die if he left him. 23   But you answered, “Unless your youngest brother comes here with you, you shall not enter my presence again.” 24   We went back to your servant our father, and told him what your lordship had said. 25   When our father told us to go and buy food, we answered, “We cannot go down; 26   for without our youngest brother we cannot enter the man's presence; but if our brother is with us, we will go.” 27   Our father, my lord, then said to us, “You know that my wife bore me two sons. 28   One left me, and I said, ‘He must have been torn to pieces.’ 29   I have not seen him to this day. If you take this one

Joseph in Egypt from me as well, and he comes to any harm, then you will bring down my grey hairs in trouble to the grave.” ^note 30   Now, my lord, when I return to my father without the boy—and remember, his life is bound up with the boy's—what will happen is this: 31   he will see that the boy is not with us ^note and will die, and your servants will have brought down our father's grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. ^note 32   Indeed, my lord, it was I who went surety for the boy to my father. I said, “If I do not bring him back to you, then you shall hold me guilty all my life.” 33   Now, my lord, let me remain in place of the boy as your lordship's slave, and let him go with his brothers. 34   How can I return to my father without the boy? I could not bear to see the misery which my father would suffer.’

1   Joseph could no longer control his feelings in front of his attendants, and he called out, ‘Let everyone leave my presence.’ So there was nobody present when Joseph made himself known to his brothers, 2   but so loudly did he weep that the Egyptians and Pharaoh's household heard him. 3   Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph; can my father be still alive?’ His brothers were so dumbfounded at finding themselves face to face with Joseph that they could not answer. 4   Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come closer’, and so they came close. He said, ‘I am your brother Joseph whom you sold into Egypt. 5   Now do not be distressed or take it amiss that you sold me into slavery here; it was God who sent me ahead of you to save men's lives. 6   For there have now been two years of famine in the country, and there will be another five years with neither ploughing nor harvest. 7   God sent me ahead of you to ensure that you will have descendants on earth, and to preserve you all, a great band of survivors. 8   So it was not you who sent me here, but God, and he has made me a father ^note to Pharaoh, and lord over all his household and ruler of all Egypt. 9   Make haste and go back to my father and give him this message from his son Joseph: “God has made me lord of all Egypt. 10   Come down to me; do not delay. You shall live in the land of Goshen and be near me, you, your sons and your grandsons, your flocks and herds and all that you have. 11   I will take care of you there, you and your household and all that you have, and see that you are not reduced to poverty; there are still five years of famine to come.” 12   You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that it is Joseph himself who is speaking to you. 13   Tell my father of all the honour which I enjoy in Egypt, tell him all you have seen, and make haste to bring him down here.’ 14   Then he threw his arms round his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin too embraced him weeping. 15   He kissed all his brothers and wept over them, and afterwards his brothers talked with him.

16   When the report that Joseph's brothers had come reached Pharaoh's

Joseph in Egypt house, he and all his courtiers were pleased. 17   Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Say to your brothers: “This is what you are to do. Load your beasts and go to Canaan. 18   Fetch your father and your households and bring them to me. I will give you the best that there is in Egypt, and you shall enjoy the fat of the land.” 19   You shall also tell them: ^note “Take wagons from Egypt for your dependants and your wives and fetch your father and come. 20   Have no regrets at leaving your possessions, for all the best that there is in Egypt is yours.”’ 21   The sons of Israel did as they were told, and Joseph gave them wagons, according to Pharaoh's orders, and food for the journey. 22   He provided each of them with a change of clothing, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver and five changes of clothing. 23   Moreover he sent his father ten asses carrying the best that there was in Egypt, and ten she-asses loaded with grain, bread, and provisions for his journey. 24   So he dismissed his brothers, telling them not to quarrel among themselves on the road, and they set out. 25   Thus they went up from Egypt and came to their father Jacob in Canaan. 26   There they gave him the news that Joseph was still alive and that he was ruler of all Egypt. 27   He was stunned and could not believe it, but they told him all that Joseph had said; and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to take him away, his spirit revived. 28   Israel said, ‘It is enough. Joseph my son is still alive; I will go and see him before I die.’

1   So Israel set out with all that he had and came to Beersheba where he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. 2   God said to Israel in a vision by night, ‘Jacob, Jacob’, and he answered, ‘I am here.’ 3   God said, ‘I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you a great nation. 4   I will go down with you to Egypt, and I myself will bring you back again without fail; and Joseph shall close your eyes.’ 5   So Jacob set out from Beersheba. Israel's sons conveyed their father Jacob, their dependants, and their wives in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry them. 6   They took the herds and the stock which they had acquired in Canaan and came to Egypt, 7   Jacob and all his descendants with him, his sons and their sons, his daughters and his sons' daughters: he brought all his descendants to Egypt.

8    ^noteThese are the names of the Israelites who entered Egypt: Jacob and his sons, as follows: Reuben, Jacob's eldest son. 9   The sons of Reuben: Enoch, Pallu, Hezron and Carmi. 10   The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Saul, who was the son of a Canaanite woman. 11    12   The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath and Merari. The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez and Zerah; of these Er and Onan died in

Joseph in Egypt Canaan. 13   The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul. ^noteThe sons of Issachar: Tola, Pua, Iob and Shimron. 14   The sons of Zebulun: Sered, Elon and Jahleel. 15   These are the sons of Leah whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, and there was also his daughter Dinah. His sons and daughters numbered thirty-three in all.

16   The sons of Gad: Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi and Areli. 17   The sons of Asher: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, and their sister Serah. 18   The sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel. These are the descendants of Zilpah whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah; sixteen in all, born to Jacob.

19    20   The sons of Jacob's wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. Manasseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph in Egypt. Asenath daughter of Potiphera priest of On bore them to him. 21   The sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher and Ashbel; and the sons of Bela: ^note Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim and Ard. 22   These are the descendants of Rachel; fourteen in all, born to Jacob.

23    24   The son ^note of Dan: Hushim. The sons of Naphtali: Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer and Shillem. 25   These are the descendants of Bilhah whom Laban gave to his daughter Rachel; seven in all, born to Jacob.

26   The persons belonging to Jacob who came to Egypt, all his direct descendants, not counting the wives of his sons, were sixty-six in all. 27   Two sons were born to Joseph in Egypt. Thus the house of Jacob numbered seventy ^note when it entered Egypt.

28   Judah was sent ahead that he might appear ^note before Joseph in Goshen, and so they entered Goshen. 29   Joseph had his chariot made ready and went up to meet his father Israel in Goshen. When they met, he threw his arms round him and wept, and embraced him for a long time, weeping. 30   Israel said to Joseph, ‘I have seen your face again, and you are still alive. 31   Now I am ready to die.’ Joseph said to his brothers and to his father's household, ‘I will go and tell Pharaoh; I will say to him, “My brothers and my father's household who were in Canaan have come to me.”’ 32   Now his brothers were shepherds, men with their own flocks and herds, and they had brought them with them, their flocks and herds and all that they possessed. 33   So Joseph said, ‘When Pharaoh summons you and asks you what your occupation is, 34   you must say, “My lord, we have been herdsmen all our lives, as our fathers were before us.” You must say this if you are to settle in the land of Goshen, because all shepherds are an abomination to the Egyptians.’

1   Joseph came and told Pharaoh, ‘My father and my brothers have arrived from Canaan, with their flocks and their cattle and all that they have, and they are now in Goshen.’ 2   Then he chose five of his brothers

Joseph in Egypt and presented them to Pharaoh, 3   who asked them what their occupation was, and they answered, ‘My lord, we are shepherds, we and our fathers before us, and we have come to stay in this land; 4   for there is no pasture in Canaan for our sheep, because the famine there is so severe. We beg you, my lord, to let us settle now in Goshen.’ 5   Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘So your father and your brothers have come to you. 6   The land of Egypt is yours; settle them in the best part of it. Let them live in Goshen, and if you know of any capable men among them, make them chief herdsmen over my cattle.’

7   Then Joseph brought his father in and presented him to Pharaoh, and Jacob gave Pharaoh his blessing. 8    9   Pharaoh asked Jacob his age, and he answered, ‘The years of my earthly sojourn are one hundred and thirty; hard years they have been and few, not equal to the years that my fathers lived in their time.’ 10   Jacob then blessed Pharaoh and went out from his presence. 11   So Joseph settled his father and his brothers, and gave them lands in Egypt, in the best part of the country, in the district of Rameses, as Pharaoh had ordered. 12   He supported his father, his brothers, and all his father's household with all the food they needed. ^note

13   There was no bread in the whole country, so very severe was the famine, and Egypt and Canaan were laid low by it. 14   Joseph collected all the silver in Egypt and Canaan in return for the corn which the people bought, and deposited it in Pharaoh's treasury. 15   When all the silver in Egypt and Canaan had been used up, the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, ‘Give us bread, or we shall die before your eyes. Our silver is all spent.’ 16   Joseph said, ‘If your silver is spent, give me your herds and I will give you bread in return.’ 17   So they brought their herds to Joseph, who gave them bread in exchange for their horses, their flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and their asses. He maintained them that year with bread in exchange for their herds. 18   The year came to an end, and the following year they came to him again and said, ‘My lord, we cannot conceal it from you: our silver is all gone and our herds of cattle are yours. Nothing is left for your lordship but our bodies and our lands. 19   Why should we perish before your eyes, we and our land as well? Take us and our land in payment for bread, and we and our land alike will be in bondage to Pharaoh. Give us seed-corn to keep us alive, or we shall die and our land will become desert.’ 20   So Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh, because the Egyptians sold all their fields, so severe was the famine; the land became Pharaoh's. 21   As for the people, Pharaoh set them to work as slaves ^note from one end of the territory of Egypt to the other. 22   But Joseph did not buy the land which belonged to the priests; they had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh and lived on this, so that they had no need to sell their land.

Joseph in Egypt

23   Joseph said to the people, ‘Listen; I have today bought you and your land for Pharaoh. 24   Here is seed-corn for you. Sow the land, and give one fifth of the crop to Pharaoh. Four fifths shall be yours to provide seed for your fields and food for yourselves, your households, and your dependants.’ 25   The people said, ‘You have saved our lives. If it please your lordship, we will be Pharaoh's slaves.’ 26   Joseph established it as a law in Egypt that one fifth should belong to Pharaoh, and this is still in force. It was only the priests' land that did not pass into Pharaoh's hands.

27   Thus Israel settled in Egypt, in Goshen; there they acquired land, and were fruitful and increased greatly. 28   Jacob stayed in Egypt for seventeen years and lived to be a hundred and forty-seven years old. 29   When the time of his ^note death drew near, he summoned his son Joseph and said to him, ‘If I may now claim this favour from you, put your hand under my thigh and swear by the Lord ^note that you will deal loyally and truly with me and not bury me in Egypt. 30   When I die like my forefathers, you shall carry me from Egypt and bury me in their grave.’ 31   He answered, ‘I will do as you say’; but Jacob said, ‘Swear it.’ So he swore the oath, and Israel sank down over the end of the bed. ^note

1   The time came when Joseph was told that his father was ill, so he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. 2   Jacob heard that his son Joseph was coming to him, and he ^note summoned his strength and sat up on the bed. 3   Jacob said to Joseph, ‘God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in Canaan and blessed me. 4   He said to me, “I will make you fruitful and increase your descendants until they become a host of nations. I will give this land to your descendants after you as a perpetual possession.” 5   Now, your two sons, who were born to you in Egypt before I came here, shall be counted as my sons; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine as Reuben and Simeon are. 6   Any children born to you after them shall be counted as yours, but in respect of their tribal territory they shall be reckoned under their elder brothers' names. 7   As I was coming from Paddan-aram ^note I was bereaved of Rachel your mother ^note on the way, in Canaan, whilst there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, ^note and I buried her there by the road to Ephrath, ^note that is Bethlehem.’

8    9   When Israel saw Joseph's sons, he said, ‘Who are these?’ Joseph replied to his father, ‘They are my sons whom God has given me here.’ Israel said, ‘Bring them to me, I beg you, so that I may take them on my knees.’ ^note 10   Now Israel's eyes were dim with age, and he could not

Joseph in Egypt see; so Joseph brought the boys close to his father, and he kissed them and embraced them. 11   He said to Joseph, ‘I had not expected to see your face again, and now God has granted me to see your sons also.’ 12   Joseph took them from his father's knees and bowed to the ground. 13   Then he took the two of them, Ephraim on his right at Israel's left and Manasseh on his left at Israel's right, and brought them close to him. 14   Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim's head, although he was the younger, and, crossing his hands, laid his left hand on Manasseh's head; but Manasseh was the elder. 15   He blessed Joseph and said:

  ‘The God in whose presence my forefathers lived,
  my forefathers Abraham and Isaac,
  the God who has been my shepherd all my life until this day,
   16   the angel who ransomed me from all misfortune,
  may he bless these boys;
  they shall be called by my name,
  and by that of my forefathers, Abraham and Isaac;
  may they grow into a great people on earth.’

17   When Joseph saw that his father was laying his right hand on Ephraim's head, he was displeased; so he took hold of his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's. 18   He said, ‘That is not right, my father. 19   This is the elder; lay your right hand on his head.’ But his father refused; he said, ‘I know, my son, I know. He too shall become a people; he too shall become great, but his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall be a whole nation in themselves.’ 20   That day he blessed them and said:

  ‘When a blessing is pronounced in Israel,
  men shall use your names ^note and say,
  God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh’,

21   thus setting Ephraim before Manasseh. Then Israel said to Joseph, ‘I am dying. God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your fathers. 22   I give you one ridge of land ^note more than your brothers: I took it from the Amorites with my sword and my bow.’

1   Jacob summoned his sons and said, ‘Come near, and I will tell you what will happen to you in days to come.

     2   Gather round me and listen, you sons of Jacob;
    listen to Israel your father.
   3   Reuben, you are my first-born,

Joseph in Egypt
    my strength and the first fruit of my vigour,
    excelling in pride, excelling in might,
     4   turbulent as a flood, you shall not excel;
    because you climbed into your father's bed;
    then you defiled his concubine's couch.
   5   Simeon and Levi are brothers,
    their spades ^note became weapons of violence.
     6   My soul shall not enter their council,
    my heart shall not join their company;
    for in their anger they killed men,
    wantonly they hamstrung oxen.
     7   A curse be on their anger because it was fierce;
    a curse on their wrath because it was ruthless!
    I will scatter them in Jacob,
    I will disperse them in Israel.
   8   Judah, your brothers shall praise you,
    your hand is on the neck of your enemies.
    Your father's sons shall do you homage.
     9   Judah, you lion's whelp,
    you have returned from the kill, my son,
    and crouch and stretch like a lion;
    and, like a lion, ^note who dare rouse you ^note?
     10   The sceptre shall not pass from Judah,
    nor the staff from his descendants, ^note
    so long as tribute is brought to him ^note
    and the obedience of the nations is his.
     11   To the vine he tethers his ass,
    and the colt of his ass to the red vine;
    he washes his cloak in wine,
    his robes in the blood of grapes.
     12   Darker than wine are his eyes,
    his teeth whiter than milk.
   13   Zebulun dwells by the sea-shore,
    his shore is a haven for ships,
    and his frontier rests on Sidon.
   14   Issachar, a gelded ^note ass
    lying down in the cattle-pens,
     15   saw that a settled home was good
    and that the land was pleasant,
    so he bent his back to the burden
    and submitted to perpetual forced labour.

Joseph in Egypt
   16   Dan—how insignificant his people,
    lowly as any tribe in Israel! ^note
     17   Let Dan be a viper on the road,
    a horned snake on the path,
    who bites the horse's fetlock
    so that the rider tumbles backwards.


     18   For thy salvation I wait in hope, O Lord.


   19   Gad is raided by raiders,
    and he raids them from the rear.
   20   Asher shall have rich food as daily fare,
    and provide dishes fit for a king.
   21   Naphtali is a spreading terebinth
    putting forth lovely boughs.
   22   Joseph is a fruitful tree ^note by a spring
    with branches climbing over the wall.
     23   The archers savagely attacked him,
    they shot at him and pressed him hard,
     24   but their bow was splintered by the Eternal
    and the sinews of their arms were torn apart ^note
    by the power of the Strong One of Jacob,
    by the name of the Shepherd ^note of Israel,
     25   by the God of your father—so may he help you,
    by God ^note Almighty—so may he bless you
    with the blessings of heaven above,
    the blessings of the deep that lurks below.
    The blessings of breast and womb
     26   and the blessings of your father are stronger
    than the blessings of the everlasting pools ^note
    and the bounty of the eternal hills.
    They shall be on the head of Joseph,
    on the brow of the prince among ^note his brothers.
   27   Benjamin is a ravening wolf:
    in the morning he devours the prey,
    in the evening he snatches a share of the spoil.’

28   These, then, are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father Jacob said to them, when he blessed them each in turn. 29   He gave them his last charge and said, ‘I shall soon be gathered to my father's kin; bury me with my forefathers in the cave on the plot of land which

Joseph in Egypt belonged to Ephron the Hittite, 30   that is the cave on the plot of land at Machpelah east of Mamre in Canaan, the field which Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite for a burial-place. 31   There Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah; there Isaac and his wife Rebecca were buried; and there I buried Leah. 32   The land and the cave on it were bought from the Hittites.’ 33   When Jacob had finished giving his last charge to his sons, he drew his feet up on to the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his father's kin.

1   Then Joseph threw himself upon his father, weeping and kissing his face. 2   He ordered the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel, 3   and they did so, finishing the task in forty days, which was the usual time for embalming. The Egyptians mourned him for seventy days; 4   and then, when the days of mourning for Israel were over, Joseph approached members of Pharaoh's household and said, ‘If I can count on your goodwill, then speak for me to Pharaoh; tell him that my father made me take an oath, saying, “I am dying. 5   Bury me in the grave that I bought ^note for myself in Canaan.” Ask him to let me go up and bury my father, and afterwards I will return.’ 6   Pharaoh answered, ‘Go and bury your father, as he has made you swear to do.’ 7   So Joseph went to bury his father, accompanied by all Pharaoh's courtiers, the elders of his household, 8   and all the elders of Egypt, together with all Joseph's own household, his brothers, and his father's household; only their dependants, with the flocks and herds, were left in Goshen. 9   He took with him chariots and horsemen; they were a very great company. 10   When they came to the threshing-floor of Atad beside the river Jordan, they raised a loud and bitter lament; and there Joseph observed seven days' mourning for his father. 11   When the Canaanites who lived there saw this mourning at the threshing-floor of Atad, they said, ‘How bitterly the Egyptians are mourning!’; accordingly they named the place beside the Jordan Abel-mizraim. ^note

12    13   Thus Jacob's sons did what he had told them to do. They took him to Canaan and buried him in the cave on the plot of land at Machpelah, the land which Abraham had bought as a burial-place from Ephron the Hittite, to the east of Mamre. 14   Then, after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone up with him.

15   When their father was dead Joseph's brothers were afraid and said, ‘What if Joseph should bear a grudge against us and pay us out for all the harm that we did to him?’ 16   They therefore approached ^note Joseph with these words: ‘In his last words to us before he died, your father gave us this message for you: 17   “I ask you to forgive your brothers' crime

Joseph in Egypt and wickedness; I know they did you harm.” So now forgive our crime, we beg; for we are servants of your father's God.’ When they said this to him, Joseph wept. 18   His brothers also wept ^note and prostrated themselves before him; they said, ‘You see, we are your slaves.’ 19   But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. 20   Am I in the place of God? You meant to do me harm; but God meant to bring good out of it by preserving the lives of many people, as we see today. 21   Do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your dependants.’ Thus he comforted them and set their minds at rest.

22   Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father's household. He lived 23   there to be a hundred and ten years old and saw Ephraim's children to the third generation; he also recognized as his ^note the children of Manasseh's son Machir. 24   He said to his brothers, ‘I am dying; but God will not fail to come to your aid and take you from here to the land which he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ 25   He made the sons of Israel take an oath, saying, ‘When God thus comes to your aid, you must take my bones with you ^note from here.’ 26   So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. He was embalmed and laid in a coffin in Egypt.

EXODUS Israel enslaved in Egypt

1   These are the names of the Israelites who entered Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: 2   Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3    4   Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5   There were seventy ^note of them all told, all direct descendants of Jacob. Joseph was already in Egypt.

6   In course of time Joseph died, he and all his brothers and that whole generation. 7   Now the Israelites were fruitful and prolific; they increased in numbers and became very powerful, ^note so that the country was overrun by them. 8   Then a new king ascended the throne of Egypt, one who knew nothing of Joseph. 9   He said to his people, ‘These Israelites have become too many and too strong for us. 10   We must take precautions to see that they do not increase any further; or we shall find that, if war breaks out, they will join the enemy and fight against us, and they will become masters of the country.’ 11   So they were made to work in gangs with officers set over them, to break their spirit with heavy labour. This is how Pharaoh's store-cities, Pithom and Rameses, were built. 12   But the more harshly they were treated, the more their numbers increased beyond all bounds, until the Egyptians came to loathe the sight of them. 13    14   So they treated their Israelite slaves with ruthless severity, and made life bitter for them with cruel servitude, setting them to work on clay and brick-making, and all sorts of work in the fields. In short they made ruthless use of them as slaves in every kind of hard labour.

15   Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah. 16   ‘When you are attending the Hebrew women in childbirth,’ he told them, ‘watch as the child is delivered ^note and if it is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.’ 17   But they were God-fearing women. They did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do, but let the boys live. 18   So he summoned those Hebrew midwives and asked them why they had done this and let the boys live. 19   They told Pharaoh that Hebrew women were not like Egyptian women. When they were in labour they gave birth before the midwife could get to them. 20   So God made the midwives prosper, and the people increased in numbers and in strength. 21   God gave the midwives homes and families of

Israel enslaved in Egypt their own, because they feared him. 22   Pharaoh then ordered all his people to throw every new-born Hebrew ^note boy into the Nile, but to let the girls live.

1    2   A descendant of Levi married a Levite woman who conceived and bore a son. When she saw what a fine child he was, she hid him for three months, but she could conceal him no longer. 3   So she got a rush basket for him, made it watertight with clay and tar, laid him in it, and put it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. 4   The child's sister took her stand at a distance to see what would happen to him. 5   Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe in the river, while her ladies-in-waiting walked along the bank. She noticed the basket among the reeds and sent her slave-girl for it. 6   She took it from her and when she opened it, she saw the child. It was crying, and she was filled with pity for it. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘it is a little Hebrew boy.’ 7   Thereupon the sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, ‘Shall I go and fetch one of the Hebrew women as a wet-nurse to suckle the child for you?’ 8   Pharaoh's daughter told her to go; so the girl went and called the baby's mother. 9   Then Pharaoh's daughter said to her, ‘Here is the child, suckle him for me, and I will pay you for it myself.’ So the woman took the child and suckled him. 10   When the child was old enough, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, who adopted him and called him Moses, ^note ‘because’, she said, ‘I drew ^note him out of the water.’

11   One day when Moses was grown up, he went out to his own kinsmen and saw them at their heavy labour. He saw an Egyptian strike one of his fellow-Hebrews. 12   He looked this way and that, and, seeing there was no one about, he struck the Egyptian down and hid his body in the sand. 13   When he went out next day, two Hebrews were fighting together. He asked the man who was in the wrong, ‘Why are you striking him?’ 14   ‘Who set you up as an officer and judge over us?’ the man replied. ‘Do you mean to murder me as you murdered the Egyptian?’ Moses was alarmed. ‘The thing must have become known’, he said to himself. 15   When Pharaoh heard of it, he tried to put Moses to death, but Moses made good his escape and settled in the land of Midian.

16   Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. One day as Moses sat by a well, they came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father's sheep. 17   Some shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses got up, took the girls' part and watered their sheep himself. 18   When the girls came back to their father Reuel, he asked, ‘How is it that you are back so quickly today?’ 19   ‘An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds,’ they answered; ‘and he even drew the water for us and watered the sheep.’ 20   ‘But where is he then?’ he said to his daughters. ‘Why did you

Israel enslaved in Egypt leave him behind? 21   Go and invite him to eat with us.’ So it came about that Moses agreed to live with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah in marriage. 22   She bore him a son, and Moses called him Gershom, ‘because’, he said, ‘I have become an alien ^note living in a foreign land.’

23   Years passed, and the king of Egypt died, but the Israelites still groaned in slavery. They cried out, and their appeal for rescue from their slavery rose up to God. 24   He heard their groaning, and remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; 25   he saw the plight of Israel, and he took heed of it.

1   Moses was minding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, priest of Midian. He led the flock along the side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2   There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in the flame of a burning bush. Moses noticed that, although the bush was on fire, it was not being burnt up; 3   so he said to himself, ‘I must go across to see this wonderful sight. Why does not the bush burn away?’ 4   When the Lord saw that Moses had turned aside to look, he ^note called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses.’ And Moses answered, ‘Yes, I am here.’ 5   God said, ‘Come no nearer; take off your sandals; the place where you are standing is holy ground.’ 6   Then he said, ‘I am the God of your forefathers, ^note the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’ Moses covered his face, for he was afraid to gaze on God.

7   The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard their outcry against their slave-masters. I have taken heed of their sufferings, 8   and have come down to rescue them from the power of Egypt, and to bring them up out of that country into a fine, broad land; it is a land flowing with milk and honey, the home of Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 9   The outcry of the Israelites has now reached me; yes, I have seen the brutality of the Egyptians towards them. 10   Come now; I will send you to Pharaoh and you shall bring my people Israel out of Egypt.’ 11   ‘But who am I,’ Moses said to God, ‘that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’ 12   God ^note answered, ‘I am ^note with you. This shall be the proof that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall all worship God here on this mountain.’

13   Then Moses said to God, ‘If I go to the Israelites and tell them that the God of their forefathers has sent me to them, and they ask me his name, what shall I say?’ 14   God answered, ‘I am; that is who I am. ^noteTell

Israel enslaved in Egypt them that I am has sent you to them.’ 15   And God said further, ‘You must tell the Israelites this, that it is Jehovah ^note the God of their forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, who has sent you to them. This is my name for ever; this is my title in every generation. 16   Go and assemble the elders of Israel and tell them that Jehovah the God of their forefathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has appeared to you and has said, “I have indeed turned my eyes towards you; I have marked all that has been done to you in Egypt, 17   and I am resolved to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt, into the country of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.” 18   They will listen to you, and then you and the elders of Israel must go to the king of Egypt. Tell him, “It has happened that the Lord the God of the Hebrews met us. So now give us leave to go a three days' journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifice to the Lord our God.” 19   I know well that the king of Egypt will not give you leave unless he is compelled. 20   I shall then stretch out my hand and assail the Egyptians with all the miracles I shall work among them. After that he will send you away. 21   Further, I will bring this people into such favour with the Egyptians that, when you go, you will not go empty-handed. 22   Every woman shall ask her neighbour or any woman who lives in her house for jewellery of silver and gold and for clothing. Load your sons and daughters with them, and plunder Egypt.’

1   Moses answered, ‘But they will never believe me or listen to me; they will say, “The Lord did not appear to you.”’ 2   The Lord said, ‘What have you there in your hand?’ 3   ‘A staff’, Moses answered. The Lord said, ‘Throw it on the ground.’ Moses threw it down and it turned into a snake. 4   He ran away from it, but the Lord said, ‘Put your hand out and seize it by the tail.’ He did so and gripped it firmly, and it turned back into a staff in his hand. 5   ‘This is to convince the people that the Lord the God of their forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.’ 6   Then the Lord said, ‘Put your hand inside the fold of your cloak.’ He did so, and when he drew it out the skin was diseased, white as snow. 7   The Lord said, ‘Put it back again’, and he did so. When he drew it out this time it was as healthy as the rest of his body. 8   ‘Now,’ said the Lord, ‘if they do not believe you and do not accept the evidence of the first sign, they may accept the evidence of the second. 9   But if they are not convinced even by these two signs, and will not accept what you say, then fetch some water from the Nile and pour it out on the dry ground, and the water you take from the Nile will turn to blood on the ground.’

Israel enslaved in Egypt

10   But Moses said, ‘O Lord, I have never been a man of ready speech, never in my life, not even now that thou hast spoken to me; I am slow and hesitant of speech.’ 11   The Lord said to him, ‘Who is it that gives man speech? Who makes him dumb or deaf? Who makes him clear-sighted or blind? 12   Is it not I, the Lord? Go now; I will help your speech and tell you what to say.’ 13   But Moses still protested, ‘No, Lord, send whom thou wilt.’ 14   At this the Lord grew angry with Moses and said, ‘Have you not a brother, Aaron the Levite? He, I know, will do all the speaking. He is already on his way out to meet you, and he will be glad indeed to see you. 15   You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; I will help both of you to speak and tell you both what to do. 16   He will do all the speaking to the people for you, he will be the mouth-piece, and you will be the god he speaks for. 17   But take this staff, for with it you are to work the signs.’

18   At length Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said, ‘Let me return to my kinsfolk in Egypt and see if they are still alive.’ Jethro told him to go and wished him well.

19   The Lord spoke to Moses in Midian and said to him, ‘Go back to Egypt, for all those who wished to kill you are dead.’ 20   So Moses took his wife and children, ^note mounted them on an ass and set out for Egypt with the staff of God in his hand. 21   The Lord said to Moses, ‘While you are on your way back to Egypt, keep in mind all the portents I have given you power to show. You shall display these before Pharaoh, but I will make him obstinate and he will not let the people go. 22   Then tell Pharaoh that these are the words of the Lord: “Israel is my first-born son. 23   I have told you to let my son go, so that he may worship me. You have refused to let him go, so I will kill your first-born son.”’

24   During the journey, while they were encamped for the night, the Lord met Moses, 25   meaning to kill him, but Zipporah picked up a sharp flint, cut off her son's foreskin, and touched him ^note with it, saying, ‘You are my blood-bridegroom.’ 26   So the Lord let Moses alone. Then she said, ^note ‘Blood-bridegroom by circumcision.’

27   Meanwhile the Lord had ordered Aaron to go and meet Moses in the wilderness. Aaron went and met him at the mountain of God, and he kissed him. 28   Then Moses told Aaron everything, the words the Lord had sent him to say and the signs he had commanded him to perform. 29    30   Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of Israel. Aaron told them everything that the Lord had said to Moses; he performed the signs before the people, and they were convinced. 31   They heard that the Lord had shown his concern for the Israelites and seen their misery; and they bowed themselves to the ground in worship.

Israel enslaved in Egypt

1   After this, Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh and said, ‘These are the words of the Lord the God of Israel: “Let my people go so that they may keep my pilgrim-feast in the wilderness.”’ 2   ‘Who is the Lord,’ asked Pharaoh, ‘that I should obey him and let Israel go? I care nothing for the Lord: and I tell you I will not let Israel go.’ 3   They replied, ‘It has happened that the God of the Hebrews met us. So let us go three days' journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifice to the Lord our God, or else he will attack us with pestilence or sword.’ 4   But the king of Egypt said, ‘Moses and Aaron, what do you mean by distracting the people from their work? Back to your labours! 5   Your people already outnumber the native Egyptians; ^note yet you would have them stop working!’

6   That very day Pharaoh ordered the people's overseers and their foremen not to supply the people with the straw used in making bricks, 7    as they had done hitherto. ‘Let them go and collect their own straw, but see that they produce the same tally of bricks as before. 8   On no account reduce it. They are a lazy people, and that is why they are clamouring to go and offer sacrifice to their god. 9   Keep the men hard at work; let them attend to that and take no notice of a pack of lies.’ 10   The overseers and foremen went out and said to the people, ‘Pharaoh's orders are that no more straw is to be supplied. 11   Go and get it for yourselves wherever you can find it; but there will be no reduction in your daily task.’ 12   So the people scattered all over Egypt to gather stubble for straw, 13   while the overseers kept urging them on, bidding them complete, day after day, the same quantity as when straw was supplied. 14   Then the Israelite foremen were flogged because they were held responsible by Pharaoh's overseers, who asked them, ‘Why did you not complete the usual number of bricks yesterday or today?’ 15   So the foremen came and appealed to Pharaoh: ‘Why do you treat your servants like this?’ they said. 16   ‘We are given no straw, yet they keep on telling us to make bricks. 17   Here are we being flogged, but it is your people's fault.’ But Pharaoh replied, ‘You are lazy, you are lazy. That is why you talk about going to offer sacrifice to the Lord. 18   Now go; get on with your work. You will be given no straw, but you must produce the tally of bricks.’ 19   When they were told that they must not let the daily tally of bricks fall short, the Israelite foremen saw that they were in trouble. 20   As they came out from Pharaoh's presence they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, and said, ‘May this bring the Lord's judgement down upon you: 21   you have made us stink in the nostrils of Pharaoh and his subjects; you have put a sword in their hands to kill us.’

22   Moses went back to the Lord, and said, ‘Why, O Lord, hast thou brought misfortune on this people? And why didst thou ever send me?

Israel enslaved in Egypt 23   Since I first went to Pharaoh to speak in thy name he has heaped misfortune on thy people, and thou hast done nothing at all to rescue them.’

1   The Lord answered, ‘Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. In the end Pharaoh will let them go with a strong hand, nay, will drive them from his country with an outstretched arm.’ ^note

2    3   God spoke to Moses and said, ‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty. ^noteBut I did not let myself be known to them by my name Jehovah. ^note 4   Moreover, I made a covenant with them to give them Canaan, the land where they settled for a time as foreigners. 5   And now I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, enslaved by the Egyptians, and I have called my covenant to mind. 6   Say therefore to the Israelites, “I am the Lord. I will release you from your labours in Egypt. I will rescue you from slavery there. I will redeem you with arm outstretched and with mighty acts of judgement. 7   I will adopt you as my people, and I will become your God. You shall know that I, the Lord, am your God, the God who releases you from your labours in Egypt. 8   I will lead you to the land which I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it you for your possession. I am the Lord.”’

9   Moses repeated these words to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him; they had become impatient because of their cruel slavery.

10    11   Then the Lord spoke to Moses and said, ‘Go and tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to set the Israelites free to leave his country.’ 12   Moses made answer in the presence of the Lord, ‘If the Israelites do not listen to me, how will Pharaoh listen to such a halting speaker as I am ^note?’

13   Thus the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them their commission to the Israelites and to Pharaoh, namely that they should bring the Israelites out of Egypt.

14    ^noteThese were the heads of fathers' families:

Sons of Reuben, Israel's eldest son: Enoch, Pallu, Hezron and Carmi; these were the families of Reuben.

15   Sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Saul, who was the son of a Canaanite woman; these were the families of Simeon.

16   These were the names of the sons of Levi in order of seniority: Gershon, Kohath and Merari. Levi lived to be a hundred and thirty-seven.

17   Sons of Gershon, family by family: Libni and Shimei.

18   Sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel. Kohath lived to be a hundred and thirty-three.

Israel enslaved in Egypt

19   Sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi.

20   These were the families of Levi in order of seniority. Amram married his father's sister Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses. Amram lived to be a hundred and thirty-seven.

21   Sons of Izhar: Korah, Nepheg and Zichri.

22   Sons of Uzziel: Mishael, Elzaphan and Sithri.

23   Aaron married Elisheba, who was the daughter of Amminadab and the sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.

24   Sons of Korah: Assir, Elkanah and Abiasaph; these were the Korahite families.

25   Eleazar son of Aaron married one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phinehas. These were the heads of the Levite families, family by family.

26   It was this Aaron, together with Moses, to whom the Lord said, ‘Bring the Israelites out of Egypt, mustered in their tribal hosts.’ 27   These were the men who told Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites leave Egypt. It was this same Moses and Aaron.

28    29   When the Lord spoke to Moses in Egypt he said, ‘I am the Lord. 30   Tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say to you.’ Moses made answer in the presence of the Lord, ‘I am a halting speaker; how will Pharaoh listen to me?’

1   The Lord answered Moses, ‘See now, I have made you like a god for Pharaoh, with your brother Aaron as your spokesman. ^note 2   You must tell your brother Aaron all I bid you say, and he will tell Pharaoh, and Pharaoh will let the Israelites go out of his country; 3   but I will make him stubborn. Then will I show sign after sign and portent after portent in the land of Egypt. 4   But Pharaoh will not listen to you, so I will assert my power in Egypt, and with mighty acts of judgement I will bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt in their tribal hosts. 5   When I put forth my power against the Egyptians and bring the Israelites out from them, then Egypt will know that I am the Lord.’ 6   So Moses and Aaron did exactly as the Lord had commanded. 7   At the time when they spoke to Pharaoh, Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three.

8    9   The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘If Pharaoh demands some portent from you, then you, Moses, must say to Aaron, “Take your staff and throw it down in front of Pharaoh, and it will turn into a serpent.”’ 10   When Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, they did as the Lord had told them. Aaron threw down his staff in front of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and it turned into a serpent. 11   At this, Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians

Israel enslaved in Egypt too did the same thing by their spells. 12   Every man threw his staff down, and each staff turned into a serpent; but Aaron's staff swallowed up theirs. 13   Pharaoh, however, was obstinate; as the Lord had foretold, he would not listen to Moses and Aaron.

14   Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh is obdurate: he has refused to set the people free. 15   Go to him in the morning on his way out to the river. Stand and wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take with you the staff that turned into a snake. 16   Say this to him: “The Lord the God of the Hebrews sent me to bid you let his people go in order to worship him in the wilderness. So far you have not listened to his words; 17   so now the Lord says, ‘By this you shall know that I am the Lord.’ With this rod that I have in my hand, I shall now strike the water in the Nile and it will be changed into blood. 18   The fish will die and the river will stink, and the Egyptians will be unable to drink water from the Nile.”’ 19   The Lord then told Moses to say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch your hand out over the waters of Egypt, its rivers and its streams, and over every pool and cistern, to turn them into blood. There shall be blood throughout the whole of Egypt, blood even in their wooden bowls and jars of stone.’ 20   So Moses and Aaron did as the Lord had commanded. He lifted up his staff and struck the water of the Nile in the sight of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and all the water was changed into blood. 21   The fish died and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood everywhere in Egypt. 22   But the Egyptian magicians did the same thing by their spells; and still Pharaoh remained obstinate, as the Lord had foretold, and did not listen to Moses and Aaron. 23   He turned away, went into his house and dismissed the matter from his mind. 24   Then the Egyptians all dug for drinking water round about the river, because they could not drink from the waters of the Nile itself. 25   This lasted for seven days from the time when the Lord struck the Nile.

1    ^noteThe Lord then told Moses to go into Pharaoh's presence and say to him, ‘These are the words of the Lord: “Let my people go in order to worship me. 2   If you refuse to let them go, I will plague the whole of your territory with frogs. 3   The Nile shall swarm with them. They shall come up from the river into your house, into your bedroom and on to your bed, into the houses of your courtiers and your people, into your ovens and your kneading-troughs. 4   The frogs shall clamber over you, your people, and your courtiers.”’ 5    ^noteThen the Lord told Moses to say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff in your hand and stretch it out over the rivers, streams, and pools, to bring up frogs upon the land of Egypt.’ 6   So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered all the land. 7   The magicians did the same

Israel enslaved in Egypt thing by their spells: they too brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. 8   ‘Pray to the Lord’, he said, ‘to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.’ 9   Moses said, ‘Of your royal favour, appoint a time when I may intercede for you and your courtiers and people, so that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, and none be left except in the Nile.’ 10   ‘Tomorrow’, Pharaoh said. ‘It shall be as you say,’ replied Moses, ‘so that you may know there is no one like our God, the Lord. 11   The frogs shall depart from you, from your houses, your courtiers, and your people: none shall be left except in the Nile.’ 12   Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh's presence, and Moses appealed to the Lord to remove the frogs which he had brought on Pharaoh. 13   The Lord did as Moses had asked, and in house and courtyard and in the open the frogs all perished. 14   They piled them into countless heaps and the land stank; 15   but when Pharaoh found that he was given relief he became obdurate; as the Lord had foretold, he did not listen to Moses and Aaron.

16   The Lord then told Moses to say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your staff and strike the dust on the ground, and it will turn into maggots throughout the land of Egypt’, and they obeyed. 17   Aaron stretched out his staff and struck the dust, and it turned into maggots on man and beast. 18   All the dust turned into maggots throughout the land of Egypt. The magicians tried to produce maggots in the same way by their spells, but they failed. The maggots were everywhere, on man and beast. 19   ‘It is the finger of God’, said the magicians to Pharaoh, but Pharaoh remained obstinate; as the Lord had foretold, he did not listen to them.

20   The Lord told Moses to rise early in the morning and stand in Pharaoh's path as he went out to the river and to say to him, ‘These are the words of the Lord: “Let my people go in order to worship me. 21   If you do not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies upon you, your courtiers, your people, and your houses. The houses of the Egyptians shall be filled with the swarms and so shall all the land they live in, 22   but on that day I will make an exception of Goshen, the land where my people live: there shall be no swarms there. Thus you shall know that I, the Lord, am here in the land. 23   I will make a distinction ^note between my people and yours. 24   Tomorrow this sign shall appear.”’ The Lord did this; dense swarms of flies infested Pharaoh's house and those of his courtiers; throughout Egypt the land was threatened with ruin by the swarms. 25   Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said to them, ‘Go and sacrifice to your God, but in this country.’ 26   ‘That we cannot do,’ replied Moses, ‘because the victim we shall sacrifice to the Lord our God is an abomination to the Egyptians. If the Egyptians

Israel enslaved Egypt see us offer such an animal, will they not stone us to death? 27   We must go a three days' journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he commands us.’ 28   ‘I will let you go,’ said Pharaoh, ‘and you shall sacrifice to your God in the wilderness; only do not go far. 29   Now intercede for me.’ Moses answered, ‘As soon as I leave you I will intercede with the Lord. Tomorrow the swarms will depart from Pharaoh, his courtiers, and his people. Only let not Pharaoh trifle any more with the people by preventing them from going to sacrifice to the Lord.’ 30    31   Then Moses left Pharaoh and interceded with the Lord. The Lord did as Moses had said; he removed the swarms from Pharaoh, his courtiers, and his people; not one was left. 32   But once again Pharaoh became obdurate and did not let the people go.

1   The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go into Pharaoh's presence and say to him, “These are the words of the Lord the God of the Hebrews: ‘Let my people go in order to worship me.’ 2   If you refuse to let them go and still keep your hold on them, 3   the Lord will strike your grazing herds, your horses and asses, your camels, cattle, and sheep with a terrible pestilence. 4   But the Lord will make a distinction between Israel's herds and those of the Egyptians. Of all that belong to Israel not a single one shall die.”’ 5   The Lord fixed a time and said, ‘Tomorrow I will do this throughout the land.’ 6   The next day the Lord struck. All the herds of Egypt died, but from the herds of the Israelites not one single beast died. 7   Pharaoh inquired and was told that not a beast from the herds of Israel had died; and yet he remained obdurate and did not let the people go.

8   The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Take handfuls of soot from a kiln. 9   Moses shall toss it into the air in Pharaoh's sight, and it will turn into a fine dust over the whole of Egypt. All over Egypt it will become festering boils on man and beast.’ 10   They took the soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it into the air and it produced festering boils on man and beast. 11   The magicians were no match for Moses because of the boils, which attacked them and all the Egyptians. 12   But the Lord made Pharaoh obstinate; as the Lord had foretold to Moses, he did not listen to Moses and Aaron.

13   The Lord then told Moses to rise early in the morning, present himself before Pharaoh, and say to him, ‘These are the words of the Lord the God of the Hebrews: “Let my people go in order to worship me. 14   This time I will strike home with all my plagues against you, your courtiers, and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. 15   By now I could have stretched out my hand, and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have vanished from the earth. 16   I have let you live only to show you my power and to spread my fame throughout the land. 17   Since you still obstruct my

Israel enslaved in Egypt people and will not let them go, tomorrow at this time. 18   I will send a violent hailstorm, such as has never been in Egypt from its first beginnings until now. 19   Send now and bring your herds under cover, and everything you have out in the open field. If anything, whether man or beast, which happens to be in the open, is not brought in, the hail will fall on it, and it will die.”’ 20   Those of Pharaoh's subjects who feared the word of the Lord hurried their slaves and cattle into their houses. 21   But those who did not take to heart the word of the Lord left their slaves and cattle in the open.

22   The Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand towards the sky to bring down hail on the whole land of Egypt, on man and beast and every growing thing throughout the land.’ 23   Moses stretched out his staff towards the sky, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, with fire flashing down to the ground. The Lord rained down hail on the land of Egypt, hail and fiery flashes through the hail, 24   so heavy that there had been nothing like it in all Egypt from the time that Egypt became a nation. 25   Throughout Egypt the hail struck everything in the fields, both man and beast; it beat down every growing thing and shattered every tree. 26   Only in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived, was there no hail.

27   Pharaoh sent and summoned Moses and Aaron. ‘This time I have sinned,’ he said; ‘the Lord is in the right; I and my people are in the wrong. 28   Intercede with the Lord, for we can bear no more of this thunder and hail. ^note 29   I will let you go; you need wait no longer.’ Moses said, ‘When I leave the city I will spread out my hands in prayer to the Lord. The thunder shall cease, and there shall be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord's. 30   But you and your subjects—I know that you do not yet fear the Lord God.’ 31   (The flax and barley were destroyed because the barley was in the ear and the flax in bud, 32   but the wheat and spelt were not destroyed because they come later.) 33   Moses left Pharaoh's presence, went out of the city and lifted up his hands to the Lord in prayer: the thunder and hail ceased, and no more rain fell. 34   When Pharaoh saw that the downpour, the hail, and the thunder had ceased, he sinned again, he and his courtiers, and became obdurate. 35   So Pharaoh remained obstinate; as the Lord had foretold through Moses, he did not let the people go.

1   Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go into Pharaoh's presence. I have made him and his courtiers obdurate, so that I may show these my signs among them, ^note 2   and so that you can tell your children and grandchildren the story: how I made sport of the Egyptians, and what signs I showed among them. 3   Thus you will know that I am the Lord.’ Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, ‘These are the words of

Israel enslaved in Egypt the Lord the God of the Hebrews: “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go in order to worship me. 4   If you refuse to let my people go, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country. 5   They shall cover the face of the land so that it cannot be seen. They shall eat up the last remnant left you by the hail. They shall devour every tree that grows in your country-side. 6   Your houses and your courtiers' houses, every house in Egypt, shall be full of them; your fathers never saw the like nor their fathers before them; such a thing has not happened from their time until now.”’ He turned and left Pharaoh's presence. 7   Pharaoh's courtiers said to him, ‘How long must we be caught in this man's toils? Let their menfolk go and worship the Lord their God. Do you not know by now that Egypt is ruined?’ 8   So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, ‘You may go and worship the Lord your God; but who exactly is to go?’ 9   ‘All,’ said Moses, ‘young and old, boys and girls, sheep and cattle; for we have to keep the Lord's pilgrim-feast.’ 10   Pharaoh replied, ‘Very well then; take your dependants with you when you go; and the Lord be with you. But beware, there is trouble in store for you. 11   No, your menfolk may go and worship the Lord, for that is all you asked.’ So they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence.

12   Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand over Egypt so that the locusts may come ^note and invade the land and devour all the vegetation in it, everything the hail has left.’ 13   Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord sent a wind roaring in from the east all that day and all that night. When morning came, the east wind had brought the locusts. 14   They invaded the whole land of Egypt, and settled on all its territory in swarms so dense that the like of them had never been seen before, nor ever will be again. 15   They covered the surface of the whole land till it was black with them. They devoured all the vegetation and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had spared. 16   There was no green left on tree or plant throughout all Egypt. Pharaoh hastily summoned Moses and Aaron. ‘I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you’, he said. 17   ‘Forgive my sin, I pray, just this once. Intercede with the Lord your God and beg him only to remove this deadly plague from me.’ 18   Moses left Pharaoh and interceded with the Lord. 19   The Lord changed the wind into a westerly gale, which carried the locusts away and swept them into the Red Sea. ^noteThere was not a single locust left in all the territory of Egypt. 20   But the Lord made Pharaoh obstinate, and he did not let the Israelites go.

21   Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand towards the sky so that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, darkness that can be felt.’ 22   Moses stretched out his hand towards the sky, and it

Israel enslaved in Egypt became pitch dark throughout the land of Egypt for three days. 23   Men could not see one another; for three days no one stirred from where he was. But there was no darkness wherever the Israelites lived. 24   Pharaoh summoned Moses. ‘Go’, he said, ‘and worship the Lord. Your dependants may go with you; but your flocks and herds must be left with us.’ 25   But Moses said, ‘No, you must yourself supply us with animals for sacrifice and whole-offering to the Lord our God; 26   and our own flocks must go with us too—not a hoof must be left behind. We may need animals from our own flocks to worship the Lord our God; we ourselves cannot tell until we are there how we are to worship the Lord.’ 27   The Lord made Pharaoh obstinate, and he refused to let them go. 28   ‘Out! Pester me no more!’ he said to Moses. ‘Take care you do not see my face again, for on the day you do, you die.’ ‘You are right,’ said Moses; ‘I shall never see your face again.’

1   Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘One last plague I will bring upon Pharaoh and Egypt. After that he will let you go; he will send you packing, as a man dismisses a rejected bride. 2   Let the people be told that men and women alike should ask their neighbours for jewellery of silver and gold.’ 3   The Lord made the Egyptians well-disposed towards them, and, moreover, Moses was a very great man in Egypt in the eyes of Pharaoh's courtiers and of the people.

4   Moses then said, ‘These are the words of the Lord: “At midnight I will go out among the Egyptians. 5   Every first-born creature in the land of Egypt shall die: the first-born of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, the first-born of the slave-girl at the handmill, and all the first-born of the cattle. 6   All Egypt will send up a great cry of anguish, a cry the like of which has never been heard before, nor ever will be again. 7   But among all Israel not a dog's tongue shall be so much as scratched, no man or beast be hurt.” Thus you shall know that the Lord does make a distinction between Egypt and Israel. 8   Then all these courtiers of yours will come down to me, prostrate themselves and cry, “Go away, you and all the people who follow at your heels.” After that I will go away.’ Then Moses left Pharaoh's presence hot with anger.

9   The Lord said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh will not listen to you; I will therefore show still more portents in the land of Egypt.’ 10   All these portents had Moses and Aaron shown in the presence of Pharaoh, and yet the Lord made him obstinate, and he did not let the Israelites leave the country.

The institution of the Passover

1    2   The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt: This month is for you the first of months; you shall make it the first month of the year. 3   Speak to the whole community of Israel and say to them: On the tenth day of this month let each man take a lamb or a kid for his family, one for each household, 4   but if a household is too small for one lamb or one kid, then the man and his nearest neighbour may take one between them. They shall share the cost, taking into account both the number of persons and the amount each of them eats. 5   Your lamb or kid must be without blemish, a yearling male. You may take equally a sheep or a goat. 6   You must have it in safe keeping until the fourteenth day of this month, and then all the assembled community of Israel shall slaughter the victim between dusk and dark. ^note 7   They must take some of the blood and smear it on the two door-posts and on the lintel of every house in which they eat the lamb. 8   On that night they shall eat the flesh roast on the fire; they shall eat it with unleavened cakes and bitter herbs. 9   You are not to eat any of it raw or even boiled in water, but roasted, head, shins, and entrails. 10   You shall not leave any of it till morning; if anything is left over until morning, it must be destroyed by fire.

11   This is the way in which you must eat it: you shall have your belt fastened, ^note your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand, and you must eat in urgent haste. 12   It is the Lord's Passover. On that night I shall pass through the land of Egypt and kill every first-born of man and beast. Thus will I execute judgement, I the Lord, against all the gods of Egypt. 13   And as for you, the blood will be a sign on the houses in which you are: when I see the blood I will pass over ^note you; the mortal blow shall not touch you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

14   You shall keep this day as a day of remembrance, and make it a pilgrim-feast, a festival of the Lord; you shall keep it generation after generation as a rule for all time. 15   For seven days you shall eat unleavened cakes. On the very first day you shall rid your houses of leaven; from the first day to the seventh anyone who eats leavened bread shall be outlawed ^note from Israel. 16   On the first day there shall be a sacred assembly and on the seventh day there shall be a sacred assembly: on these days no work shall be done, except what must be done to provide food for everyone; and that will be allowed. 17   You shall observe these commandments because this was the very day on which I brought

The institution of the Passover you out of Egypt in your tribal hosts. You shall observe this day from generation to generation as a rule for all time.

18   You shall eat unleavened cakes in the first month from the evening which begins the fourteenth day until the evening which begins the twenty-first day. 19   For seven days no leaven may be found in your houses, for anyone who eats anything fermented shall be outlawed from the community of Israel, be he foreigner or native. 20   You must eat nothing fermented. Wherever you live you must eat your cakes unleavened.

21   Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, ‘Go at once and get sheep for your families and slaughter the Passover. 22   Then take a bunch of marjoram, ^note dip it in the blood in the basin ^note and smear some blood from the basin ^note on the lintel and the two door-posts. 23   Nobody may go out through the door of his house till morning. The Lord will go through Egypt and strike it, but when he sees the blood on the lintel and the two door-posts, he will pass over that door and will not let the destroyer enter your houses to strike you. 24   You shall keep this as a rule for you and your children for all time. 25   When you enter the land which the Lord will give you as he promised, you shall observe this rite. 26   Then, when your children ask you, “What is the meaning of this rite?” 27   you shall say, “It is the Lord's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.”’ The people bowed down and prostrated themselves.

28   The Israelites went and did all that the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron; 29   and by midnight the Lord had struck down every first-born in Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh on his throne to the first-born of the captive in the dungeon, and the first-born of cattle. 30   Before night was over Pharaoh rose, he and all his courtiers and all the Egyptians, and a great cry of anguish went up, because not a house in Egypt was without its dead. 31   Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron while it was still night and said, ‘Up with you! Be off, and leave my people, you and your Israelites. Go and worship the Lord, as you ask; take your sheep and cattle, and go; 32   and ask God's blessing on me also.’ 33   The Egyptians urged on the people and hurried them out of the country, ‘or else’, they said, ‘we shall all be dead.’ 34   The people picked up their dough before it was leavened, wrapped their kneading-troughs in their cloaks, and slung them on their shoulders. 35   Meanwhile the Israelites had done as Moses had told them, asking the Egyptians for jewellery of silver and gold and for clothing. 36   As the Lord had made the Egyptians well-disposed towards them, they let them have what they asked; in this way they plundered the Egyptians.

The exodus from Egypt

37   The Israelites set out from Rameses on the way to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, not counting dependants. 38   And with them too went a large company of every kind, and cattle in great numbers, both flocks and herds. 39   The dough they had brought from Egypt they baked into unleavened cakes, because there was no leaven; for they had been driven out of Egypt and allowed no time even to get food ready for themselves.

40   The Israelites had been settled in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years. 41   At the end of four hundred and thirty years, on this very day, all the tribes of the Lord came out of Egypt. 42   This was a night of vigil as the Lord waited to bring them out of Egypt. It is the Lord's night; all Israelites keep their vigil generation after generation.

43   The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: These are the rules for the Passover. 44   No foreigner may partake of it; any bought slave may eat it if you have circumcised him; 45   no stranger or hired man may eat it. 46   Each lamb must be eaten inside the one house, and you must not take any of the flesh outside the house. You must not break a single bone of it. 47    48   The whole community of Israel shall keep this feast. If there are aliens living with you and they are to keep the Passover to the Lord, every male of them must be circumcised, and then he can take part; he shall rank as native-born. No one who is uncircumcised may eat of it. 49   The same law shall apply both to the native-born and to the alien who is living among you.

50   The Israelites did all that the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron; 51   and on this very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt mustered in their tribal hosts.

1    2   The Lord spoke to Moses and said, ‘Every first-born, the first birth of every womb among the Israelites, you must dedicate to me, both man and beast; it is mine.’

3   Then Moses said to the people, ‘Remember this day, the day on which you have come out of Egypt, the land of slavery, because the Lord by the strength of his hand has brought you out. No leaven may be eaten this day, 4   for today, in the month of Abib, is the day of your exodus; 5   and when the Lord has brought you into the country of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites, the land which he swore to your forefathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, then you must observe this rite in this same month. 6   For seven days you shall eat unleavened cakes, and on the seventh day there shall be a pilgrim-feast of the Lord. 7   Only unleavened cakes shall be

The exodus from Egypt eaten during the seven days; nothing fermented and no leaven shall be seen throughout your territory. 8   On that day you shall tell your son, “This commemorates what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.” 9   You shall have the record of it as a sign upon your hand, and upon your forehead as a reminder, to make sure that the law of the Lord is always on your lips, because the Lord with a strong hand brought you out of Egypt. 10   This is a rule, and you shall keep it at the appointed time from year to year.

11   ‘When the Lord has brought you into the land of the Canaanites as he swore to you and to your forefathers, 12   and given it to you, you shall surrender to the Lord the first birth of every womb; and of all first-born offspring of your cattle the males belong to the Lord. 13   Every first-born male ass you may redeem with a kid or lamb, but if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck. Every first-born among your sons you must redeem. 14   When in time to come your son asks you what this means, you shall say to him, “By the strength of his hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15   When Pharaoh proved stubborn and refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the first-born in Egypt both man and beast. That is why I sacrifice to the Lord the first birth of every womb if it is a male and redeem every first-born of my sons. 16   You shall have the record of it as a sign upon your hand, and upon your forehead as a phylactery, because by the strength of his hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.”’

17   Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not guide them by the road towards the Philistines, although that was the shortest; for he said, ‘The people may change their minds when they see war before them, and turn back to Egypt.’ 18   So God made them go round by way of the wilderness towards the Red Sea; and the fifth generation of Israelites departed from Egypt.

19   Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, because Joseph had exacted an oath from the Israelites: ‘Some day’, he said, ‘God will show his care for you, and then, as you go, you must take my bones with you.’

20   They set out from Succoth and encamped at Etham on the edge of the wilderness. 21   And all the time the Lord went before them, by day a pillar of cloud to guide them on their journey, by night a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel night and day. 22   The pillar of cloud never left its place in front of the people by day, nor the pillar of fire by night.

1    2   The Lord spoke to Moses and said, ‘Speak to the Israelites: they are to turn back and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, ^note between Migdol and the sea to the east of Baal-zephon; your camp shall be opposite, by the

The exodus from Egypt sea. 3   Pharaoh will then think that the Israelites are finding themselves in difficult country, and are hemmed in by the wilderness. 4   I will make Pharaoh obstinate, and he will pursue them, so that I may win glory for myself at the expense of Pharaoh and all his army; and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.’ The Israelites did as they were bidden.

5   When the king of Egypt was told that the Israelites had slipped away, he and his courtiers changed their minds completely, and said, ‘What have we done? 6   We have let our Israelite slaves go free!’ So Pharaoh put horses to his chariot, and took his troops with him. 7   He took six hundred picked chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt, with a commander in each. 8   Then Pharaoh king of Egypt, made obstinate by the Lord, pursued the Israelites as they marched defiantly away. 9   The Egyptians, all Pharaoh's chariots and horses, cavalry and infantry, pursued them and overtook them encamped beside the sea by Pi-hahiroth to the east of Baal-zephon. 10   Pharaoh was almost upon them when the Israelites looked up and saw the Egyptians close behind. In their terror they clamoured to the Lord for help and said to Moses, 11    ‘Were there no graves in Egypt, that you should have brought us here to die in the wilderness? See what you have done to us by bringing us out of Egypt! 12   Is not this just what we meant when we said in Egypt, “Leave us alone; let us be slaves to the Egyptians”? We would rather be slaves to the Egyptians than die here in the wilderness.’ 13   ‘Have no fear,’ Moses answered; ‘stand firm and see the deliverance that the Lord will bring you this day; for as sure as you see the Egyptians now, you will never see them again. 14   The Lord will fight for you; so hold your peace.’

15   The Lord said to Moses, ‘What is the meaning of this clamour? Tell the Israelites to strike camp. 16   And you shall raise high your staff, stretch out your hand over the sea and cleave it in two, so that the Israelites can pass through the sea on dry ground. 17   For my part I will make the Egyptians obstinate and they will come after you; thus will I win glory for myself at the expense of Pharaoh and his army, chariots and cavalry all together. 18   The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I win glory for myself at the expense of their Pharaoh, his chariots and cavalry.’

19   The angel of God, who had kept in front of the Israelites, moved away to the rear. The pillar of cloud moved from the front and took its 20   place behind them and so came between the Egyptians and the Israelites. And the cloud brought on darkness and early nightfall, so that contact was lost throughout the night.

21   Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea away all night with a strong east wind and turned the sea-bed into dry land. 22   The waters were torn apart, and the Israelites

The exodus from Egypt went through the sea on the dry ground, while the waters made a wall for them to right and to left. 23   The Egyptians went in pursuit of them far into the sea, all Pharaoh's horse, his chariots, and his cavalry. 24   In the morning watch the Lord looked down on the Egyptian army through the pillar of fire and cloud, and he threw them into a panic. 25   He clogged ^note their chariot wheels and made them lumber along heavily, so that the Egyptians said, ‘It is the Lord fighting for Israel against Egypt; let us flee.’ 26   Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand over the sea, and let the water flow back over the Egyptians, their chariots and their cavalry.’ 27   So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the water returned to its accustomed place; but the Egyptians were in flight as it advanced, and the Lord swept them out ^note into the sea. 28   The water flowed back and covered all Pharaoh's army, the chariots and the cavalry, which had pressed the pursuit into the sea. 29   Not one man was left alive. Meanwhile the Israelites had passed along the dry ground through the sea, with the water making a wall for them to right and to left. 30   That day the Lord saved Israel from the power of Egypt, and the Israelites saw the Egyptians lying dead on the sea-shore. 31   When Israel saw the great power which the Lord had put forth against Egypt, all the people feared the Lord, and they put their faith in him and in Moses his servant.

1   Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord:

  I will sing to the Lord, for he has risen up in triumph;
  the horse and his rider he has hurled into the sea.
     2   The Lord is my refuge and my defence,
    he has shown himself my deliverer.
    He is my God, and I will glorify him;
    he is my father's God, and I will exalt him.
     3   The Lord is a warrior: the Lord is his name.
     4   The chariots of Pharaoh and his army
    he has cast into the sea;
    the flower of his officers
    are engulfed in the Red Sea.
     5   The watery abyss has covered them,
    they sank into the depths like a stone.
   6   Thy right hand, O Lord, is majestic in strength:
  thy right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy.
       7   In the fullness of thy triumph
      thou didst cast the rebels down:
      thou didst let loose thy fury;
      it consumed them like chaff.

The exodus from Egypt
   8   At the blast of thy anger the sea piled up:
    the waters stood up like a bank:
    out at sea the great deep congealed.
   9   The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake;
      I will divide the spoil,
      I will glut my appetite upon them;
      I will draw my sword,
      I will rid myself of them.’
   10   Thou didst blow with thy blast; the sea covered them.
  They sank like lead in the swelling waves.
     11   Who is like thee, O Lord, among the gods ^note?
    Who is like thee, majestic in holiness,
    worthy of awe and praise, who workest wonders?
       12   Thou didst stretch out thy right hand,
      earth engulfed them.
   13   In thy constant love thou hast led the people
      whom thou didst ransom:
    thou hast guided them by thy strength
      to thy holy dwelling-place.
     14   Nations heard and trembled;
    agony seized the dwellers in Philistia.
     15   Then the chieftains of Edom were dismayed,
    trembling seized the leaders of Moab,
  all the inhabitants of Canaan were in turmoil;
     16   terror and dread fell upon them:
  through the might of thy arm they stayed stone-still,
    while thy people passed, O Lord,
  while the people whom thou madest thy own ^note passed by.
   17   Thou broughtest them in and didst plant them
    in the mount that is thy possession,
    the dwelling-place, O Lord, of thy own making,
  the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy own hands prepared.
     18   The Lord shall reign for ever and for ever.

19   For Pharaoh's horse, both chariots and cavalry, went into the sea, and the Lord brought back the waters over them, but Israel had passed through the sea on dry ground. 20   And Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took up her tambourine, and all the women followed her, dancing to the sound of tambourines; 21   and Miriam sang them this refrain:

  Sing to the Lord, for he has risen up in triumph;
  the horse and his rider he has hurled into the sea.

The exodus from Egypt

22   Moses led Israel from the Red Sea out into the wilderness of Shur. For three days they travelled through the wilderness without finding water. 23   They came to Marah, but could not drink the Marah water because it was bitter; that is why the place was called Marah. 24   The people complained to Moses and asked, ‘What are we to drink?’ 25   Moses cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log which he threw into the water, and then the water became sweet.

It was there that the Lord laid down a precept and rule of life; there he put them to the test. 26   He said, ‘If only you will obey the Lord your God, if you will do what is right in his eyes, if you will listen to his commands and keep all his statutes, then I will never bring upon you any of the sufferings which I brought on the Egyptians; for I the Lord am your healer.’

27   They came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm-trees, and there they encamped beside the water.

1   The whole community of the Israelites set out from Elim and came into the wilderness of Sin, which lies between Elim and Sinai. This was on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left Egypt.

2   The Israelites complained to Moses and Aaron in the wilderness and said, 3   ‘If only we had died at the Lord's hand in Egypt, where we sat round the fleshpots and had plenty of bread to eat! But you have brought us out into this wilderness to let this whole assembly starve to death.’ 4   The Lord said to Moses, ‘I will rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people shall go out and gather a day's supply, so that I can put them to the test and see whether they will follow my instructions or not. 5   But on the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it shall be twice as much as they have gathered on other days.’ 6   Moses and Aaron then said to all the Israelites, ‘In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, 7   and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heeded your complaints against him; it is not against us that you bring your complaints; we are nothing.’ 8   ‘You shall know this’, Moses said, ‘when the Lord, in answer to your complaints, gives you flesh to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread in plenty. What are we? It is against the Lord that you bring your complaints, and not against us.’

9   Moses told Aaron to say to the whole community of Israel, ‘Come into the presence of the Lord, for he has heeded your complaints.’ 10   While Aaron was speaking to the community of the Israelites, they looked towards the wilderness, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud. 11    12   The Lord spoke to Moses and said, ‘I have heard the complaints of the Israelites. Say to them, “Between dusk and dark you will have flesh to eat and in the morning bread in plenty. You shall know that I the Lord am your God.”’

The exodus from Egypt

13   That evening a flock of quails flew in and settled all over the camp, and in the morning a fall of dew lay all around it. 14   When the dew was gone, there in the wilderness, fine flakes appeared, fine as hoar-frost on the ground. 15   When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is that?’, ^note because they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, ‘That is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. 16   This is the command the Lord has given: “Each of you is to gather as much as he can eat: let every man take an omer a head for every person in his tent.”’ 17   The Israelites did this, and they gathered, some more, some less, 18   but when they measured it by the omer, those who had gathered more had not too much, and those who had gathered less had not too little. 19   Each had just as much as he could eat. Moses said, ‘No one may keep any of it till morning.’ 20   Some, however, did not listen to Moses; they kept part of it till morning, and it became full of maggots and stank, and Moses was angry with them. 21   Each morning every man gathered as much as he could eat, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. 22   On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, two omers each. 23   All the chiefs of the community came and told Moses. ‘This’, he answered, ‘is what the Lord has said: “Tomorrow is a day of sacred rest, a sabbath holy to the Lord.” So bake what you want to bake now, and boil what you want to boil; put aside what remains over and keep it safe till morning.’ 24   So they put it aside till morning as Moses had commanded, and it did not stink, nor did maggots appear in it. 25   ‘Eat it today,’ said Moses, ‘because today is a sabbath of the Lord. Today you will find none outside. 26   For six days you may gather it, but on the seventh day, the sabbath, there will be none.’

27   Some of the people did go out to gather it on the seventh day, but they found none. 28   The Lord said to Moses, ‘How long will you refuse to obey my commands and instructions? 29   The Lord has given you the sabbath, and so he gives you two days' food every sixth day. Let each man stay where he is; no one may stir from his home on the seventh day.’ 30   And the people kept the sabbath on the seventh day.

31   Israel called the food manna; it was white, like coriander seed, and it tasted like a wafer made with honey.

32   ‘This’, said Moses, ‘is the command which the Lord has given: “Take a full omer of it to be kept for future generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of Egypt.”’ 33   So Moses said to Aaron, ‘Take a jar and fill it with an omer of manna, and store it in the presence of the Lord to be kept for future generations.’ 34   Aaron did as the Lord had commanded Moses, and stored it before the Testimony for safe keeping. 35   The Israelites ate the manna for forty years until they came to a land where

The exodus from Egypt they could settle; they ate it until they came to the border of Canaan. 36   (An omer is one tenth of an ephah.)

1   The whole community of Israel set out from the wilderness of Sin and travelled by stages as the Lord told them. They encamped at Rephidim, 2   where there was no water for the people to drink, and a dispute arose between them and Moses. When they said, ‘Give us water to drink’, Moses said, ‘Why do you dispute with me? Why do you challenge the Lord?’ 3   There the people became so thirsty that they raised an outcry against Moses: ‘Why have you brought us out of Egypt with our children and our herds to let us all die of thirst?’ 4   Moses cried to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with these people? In a moment they will be stoning me.’ 5   The Lord answered, ‘Go forward ahead of the people; take with you some of the elders of Israel and the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6   You will find me waiting for you there, by a rock in Horeb. Strike the rock; water will pour out of it, and the people shall drink.’ Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7   He named the place Massah ^note and Meribah, ^note because the Israelites had disputed with him and challenged the Lord with their question, ‘Is the Lord in our midst or not?’

8    9   The Amalekites came and attacked Israel at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, ‘Pick your men, and march out tomorrow to fight for us against Amalek; and I will take my stand on the hill-top with the staff of God in my hand.’ 10   Joshua carried out his orders and fought against Amalek while Moses, Aaron and Hur climbed to the top of the hill. 11   Whenever Moses raised his hands Israel had the advantage, and when he lowered his hands Amalek had the advantage. 12   But when his arms grew heavy they took a stone and put it under him and, as he sat, Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on each side, so that his hands remained steady till sunset. 13   Thus Joshua defeated Amalek and put its people to the sword.

14   The Lord said to Moses, ‘Record this in writing, and tell it to Joshua in these words: “I am resolved to blot out all memory of Amalek from under heaven.”’ 15   Moses built an altar, and named it Jehovah-nissi and said, ‘My oath upon it: ^note 16   the Lord is at war with Amalek generation after generation.’

1   Jethro priest of Midian, father-in-law of Moses, heard all that God had done for Moses and Israel his people, and how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. 2   When Moses had dismissed his wife Zipporah, 3   Jethro his father-in-law had received her and her two sons. The name of the one was Gershom, ‘for’, said Moses, ‘I have become

The exodus from Egypt an alien ^note living in a foreign land’; 4   the other's name was Eliezer, ^note ‘for’, he said, ‘the God of my father was my help and saved me from Pharaoh's sword.’

5   Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, now came to him with his sons and his wife, to the wilderness where he was encamped at the mountain of God. 6   Moses was told, ‘Here ^note is Jethro, your father-in-law, coming to you with your wife and her two sons.’ 7   Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, bowed low to him and kissed him, and they greeted one another. 8   When they came into the tent Moses told him all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to Egypt for Israel's sake, and about all their hardships on the journey, and how the Lord had saved them. 9   Jethro rejoiced at all the good the Lord had done for Israel in saving them from the power of Egypt. 10    11   He said, ‘Blessed be the Lord who has saved you from the power of Egypt and of Pharaoh. Now I know that the Lord is the greatest of all gods, because he has delivered the people from the power of the Egyptians who dealt so arrogantly with them.’ 12   Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, brought a whole-offering and sacrifices for God; and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came and shared the meal with Jethro in the presence of God.

13   The next day Moses took his seat to settle disputes among the people, and they were standing round him from morning till evening. 14   When Jethro saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, ‘What are you doing for all these people? Why do you sit alone with all of them standing round you from morning till evening?’ 15   ‘The people come to me’, Moses answered, ‘to seek God's guidance. 16   Whenever there is a dispute among them, they come to me, and I decide between man and man. 17   I declare the statutes and laws of God.’ But his father-in-law said to Moses, ‘This is not the best way to do it. 18   You will only wear yourself out and wear out all the people who are here. The task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it by yourself. 19   Now listen to me: take my advice, and God be with you. It is for you to be the people's representative before God, and bring their disputes to him. 20   You must instruct them in the statutes and laws, and teach them how they must behave and what they must do. 21   But you must yourself search for capable, God-fearing men among all the people, honest and incorruptible men, and appoint them over the people as officers over units of a thousand, of a hundred, of fifty or of ten. 22   They shall sit as a permanent court for the people; they must refer difficult cases to you but decide simple cases themselves. In this way your burden will be lightened, and they will share it with you. 23   If you do this, God will give you strength, and you will be able to go on. And, moreover, this whole people will here and now regain peace and harmony.’ 24   Moses listened to his

The exodus from Egypt father-in-law and did all he had suggested. 25   He chose capable men from all Israel and appointed them leaders of the people, officers over units of a thousand, of a hundred, of fifty or of ten. 26   They sat as a permanent court, bringing the difficult cases to Moses but deciding simple cases themselves. 27   Moses set his father-in-law on his way, and he went back to his own country. Israel at Mount Sinai

1   In the third month after Israel had left Egypt, ^note they came to the wilderness of Sinai. 2   They set out from Rephidim and entered the wilderness of Sinai, where they encamped, pitching their tents opposite the mountain. 3   Moses went up the mountain of ^note God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, ‘Speak thus to the house of Jacob, and tell this to the sons of Israel: 4   You have seen with your own eyes what I did to Egypt, and how I have carried you on eagles' wings and brought you here to me. 5   If only you will now listen to me and keep my covenant, then out of all peoples you shall become my special possession; for the whole earth is mine. 6   You shall be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation. These are the words you shall speak to the Israelites.’

7   Moses came and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all these commands which the Lord had laid upon him. 8   The people all answered together, ‘Whatever the Lord has said we will do.’ 9   Moses brought this answer back to the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, ‘I am now coming to you in a thick cloud, so that I may speak to you in the hearing of the people, and their faith in you may never fail.’ 10   Moses told the Lord what the people had said, and the Lord said to him, ‘Go to the people and hallow them today and tomorrow and make them wash their clothes. 11   They must be ready by the third day, because on the third day the Lord will descend upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. 12   You must put barriers round the mountain ^note and say, “Take care not to go up the mountain or even to touch the edge of it.” Any man who touches the mountain must be put to death. 13   No hand shall touch him; ^note he shall be stoned or shot dead: ^note neither man nor beast may live. But when the ram's horn sounds, they may go up the mountain.’ 14   Moses came down from the mountain to the people. 15   He hallowed them and they washed their clothes. He said to the people, ‘Be ready by the third day; do not go near a woman.’ 16   On the third day, when morning came, there were peals of thunder and flashes

Israel at Mount Sinai of lightning, dense cloud on the mountain and a loud trumpet blast; the people in the camp were all terrified.

17   Moses brought the people out from the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. 18   Mount Sinai was all smoking because the Lord had come down upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln; 19   all the people were ^note terrified, and the sound of the trumpet grew ever louder. Whenever Moses spoke, God answered him in a peal of thunder. ^note 20   The Lord came down upon the top of Mount Sinai and summoned Moses to the mountain-top, and Moses went up. 21   The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down; warn the people solemnly that they must not force their way through to the Lord to see him, or many of them will perish. 22   Even the priests, who have access to the Lord, must hallow themselves, for fear that the Lord may break out against them.’ 23   Moses answered the Lord, ‘The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because thou thyself didst solemnly warn us to set a barrier to the mountain and so to keep it holy.’ 24   The Lord therefore said to him, ‘Go down; then come up and bring Aaron with you, but let neither priests nor people force their way up to the Lord, for fear that he may break out against them.’ 25   So Moses went down to the people and spoke to them.

1   God spoke, and these were his words:

2   I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

3   You shall have no other god ^note to set against me.

4   You shall not make a carved image for yourself nor the likeness of anything in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.

5   You shall not bow down to them or worship ^note them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous god. I punish the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. 6   But I keep faith with thousands, with ^note those who love me and keep my commandments.

7   You shall not make wrong use of the name of the Lord your God; the Lord will not leave unpunished the man who misuses his name.

8    9   Remember to keep the sabbath day holy. You have six days to labour and do all your work. 10   But the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; that day you shall not do any work, you, your son or your daughter, your slave or your slave-girl, your cattle or the alien within your gates; 11   for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and on the seventh day he rested. Therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and declared it holy.

Israel at Mount Sinai

12   Honour your father and your mother, that you may live long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

13   You shall not commit murder.

14   You shall not commit adultery.

15   You shall not steal.

16   You shall not give false evidence against your neighbour.

17   You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, his slave, his slave-girl, his ox, his ass, or anything that belongs to him.

18   When all the people saw how it thundered and the lightning flashed, when they heard the trumpet sound and saw the mountain smoking, they trembled and stood at a distance. 19   ‘Speak to us yourself,’ they said to Moses, ‘and we will listen; but if God speaks to us we shall die.’ 20   Moses answered, ‘Do not be afraid. God has come only to test you, so that the fear of him may remain with you and keep you from sin.’ 21   So the people stood at a distance, while Moses approached the dark cloud where God was.

22   The Lord said to Moses, Say this to the Israelites: You know now that I have spoken to you from heaven. 23   You shall not make gods of silver to be worshipped as well as me, nor shall you make yourselves gods of gold. 24   You shall make an altar of earth for me, and you shall sacrifice on it both your whole-offerings and your shared ^note-offerings, your sheep and your cattle. Wherever ^note I cause my name to be invoked, I will come to you and bless you. 25   If you make an altar of stones for me, you must not build it of hewn stones, for if you use a chisel on it, you will profane it. 26   You must not mount up to my altar by steps, in case your private parts be exposed on it.

1   These are the laws you shall set before them:

2   When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall be your slave for six years, but in the seventh year he shall go free and pay nothing.

3   If he comes to you alone, he shall go away alone; but if he is married, his wife shall go away with him.

4   If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and the man shall go away alone. 5   But if the slave should say, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; 6   I will not go free’, then his master shall bring him to God: he shall bring him to the door or the door-post, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and the man shall be his slave for life.

7   When a man sells his daughter into slavery, she shall not go free as a male slave may. 8   If her master has not had intercourse with her ^note and

Israel at Mount Sinai she does not please him, he shall let her be ransomed. He has treated her unfairly and therefore has no right to sell her to strangers. 9   If he assigns her to his son, he shall allow her the rights of a daughter. 10   If he takes another woman, he shall not deprive the first of meat, clothes, and conjugal rights. 11   If he does not provide her with these three things, she shall go free without any payment.

12   Whoever strikes another man and kills him shall be put to death. 13   But if he did not act with intent, but they met by act of God, the slayer may flee to a place which I will appoint for you. 14   But if a man has the presumption to kill another by treachery, you shall take him even from my altar to be put to death.

15   Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death.

16   Whoever kidnaps a man shall be put to death, whether he has sold him, or the man is found in his possession.

17   Whoever reviles his father or mother shall be put to death.

18   When men quarrel and one hits another with a stone or with a spade, ^note and the man is not killed but takes to his bed; 19   if he recovers so as to walk about outside with a stick, then the one who struck him has no liability, except that he shall pay for loss of time and shall see that he is cured.

20   When a man strikes his slave or his slave-girl with a stick and the slave dies on the spot, he must be punished. 21   But he shall not be punished if the slave survives for one day or two, because he is worth money to his master.

22   When, in the course of a brawl, a man knocks against a pregnant woman so that she has a miscarriage but suffers no further hurt, then the offender must pay whatever fine the woman's husband demands after assessment.

23    24   Wherever hurt is done, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, 25   hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for wound.

26   When a man strikes his slave or slave-girl in the eye and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free in compensation for the eye. 27   When he knocks out the tooth of a slave or a slave-girl, he shall let the slave go free in compensation for the tooth.

28   When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh may not be eaten; the owner of the ox shall be free from liability. 29   If, however, the ox has for some time past been a vicious animal, and the owner has been duly warned but has not kept it under control, and the ox kills a man or a woman, then the ox shall be stoned, and the owner shall be put to death as well. 30   If, however, the penalty is commuted for a money payment, he shall pay in redemption of his life

Israel at Mount Sinai whatever is imposed upon him. 31   If the ox gores a son or a daughter, the same rule shall apply. 32   If the ox gores a slave or slave-girl, its owner shall pay thirty shekels of silver to their master, and the ox shall be stoned.

33   When a man removes the cover of a well ^note or digs a well ^note and leaves it uncovered, 34   then if an ox or an ass falls into it, the owner of the well shall make good the loss. He shall repay the owner of the beast in silver, and the dead beast shall be his.

35   When one man's ox butts another's and kills it, they shall sell the live ox, share the price and also share the dead beast. 36   But if it is known that the ox has for some time past been vicious and the owner has not kept it under control, he shall make good the loss, ox for ox, but the dead beast is his.

1    ^noteWhen a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters or sells it, he shall repay five beasts for the ox and four sheep for the sheep. 2    3    4    ^noteHe shall pay in full; if he has no means, he shall be sold to pay for the theft. But if the animal is found alive in his possession, be it ox, ass, or sheep, he shall repay two.

^noteIf a burglar is caught in the act and is fatally injured, it is not murder; but if he breaks in after sunrise and is fatally injured, then it is murder.

5   When a man burns off a field or a vineyard and lets the fire spread so that it burns another man's field, ^note he shall make restitution from his own field according to the yield expected; and if the whole field is laid waste, ^note he shall make restitution from the best part of his own field or vineyard.

6   When a fire starts and spreads to a heap of brushwood, so that sheaves, or standing corn, or a whole field is destroyed, he who started the fire shall make full restitution.

7   When one man gives another silver or chattels for safe keeping, and they are stolen from that man's house, the thief, if he is found, shall restore twofold. 8   But if the thief is not found, the owner of the house shall appear before God, to make a declaration that he has not touched his neighbour's property. 9   In every case of law-breaking involving an ox, an ass, or a sheep, a cloak, or any lost property which may be claimed, each party shall bring his case before God; he whom God declares to be in the wrong shall restore twofold to his neighbour.

10   When a man gives an ass, an ox, a sheep or any beast into his neighbour's keeping, and it dies or is injured or is carried off, there being no witness, 11   the neighbour shall swear by the Lord that he has not touched the man's property. The owner shall accept this, and no restitution shall be made. 12   If it has been stolen from him, he shall make

Israel at Mount Sinai restitution to the owner. 13   If it has been mauled by a wild beast, he shall bring it in as evidence; he shall not make restitution for what has been mauled.

14   When a man borrows a beast ^note from his neighbour and it is injured or dies while its owner is not with it, the borrower shall make full restitution; but if the owner is with it, 15   the borrower shall not make restitution. If it was hired, only the hire shall be due.

16   When a man seduces a virgin who is not yet betrothed, he shall pay the bride-price for her to be his wife. 17   If her father refuses to give her to him, the seducer shall pay in silver a sum equal to the bride-price for virgins.

18   You shall not allow a witch to live.

19   Whoever has unnatural connection with a beast shall be put to death.

20   Whoever sacrifices to any god but the Lord shall be put to death under solemn ban.

21   You shall not wrong an alien, or be hard upon him; you were yourselves aliens in Egypt. 22   You shall not ill-treat any widow or fatherless child. 23    24   If you do, be sure that I will listen if they appeal to me; my anger will be roused and I will kill you with the sword; your own wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

25   If you advance money to any poor man amongst my people, you shall not act like a money-lender: you must not exact interest in advance from him.

26   If you take your neighbour's cloak in pawn, you shall return it to him by sunset, because it is his only covering. 27   It is the cloak in which he wraps his body; in what else can he sleep? If he appeals to me, I will listen, for I am full of compassion.

28   You shall not revile God, nor curse a chief of your own people.

29   You shall not hold back the first of your harvest, whether corn or wine. ^note 30   You shall give me your first-born sons. You shall do the same with your oxen and your sheep. They shall stay with the mother for seven days; on the eighth day you shall give them to me.

31   You shall be holy to me: you shall not eat the flesh of anything in the open country killed by beasts, but you shall throw it to the dogs.

1   You shall not spread a baseless rumour. You shall not make common cause with a wicked man by giving malicious evidence.

2   You shall not be led into wrongdoing by the majority, nor, when you give evidence in a lawsuit, shall you side with the majority to pervert justice; ^note 3   nor shall you favour the poor man in his suit.

4   When you come upon your enemy's ox or ass straying, you shall take it back to him. 5   When you see the ass of someone who hates you lying

Israel at Mount Sinai helpless under its load, however unwilling you may be to help it, you must give him a hand with it.

6    7   You shall not deprive the poor man of justice in his suit. Avoid all lies, and do not cause the death of the innocent and the guiltless; for I the Lord will never acquit the guilty. 8   You shall not accept a bribe, for bribery makes the discerning man blind and the just man give a crooked answer.

9   You shall not oppress the alien, for you know how it feels to be an alien; you were aliens yourselves in Egypt.

10    11   For six years you may sow your land and gather its produce; but in the seventh year you shall let it lie fallow and leave it alone. It shall provide food for the poor of your people, and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard and your olive-grove.

12   For six days you may do your work, but on the seventh day you shall abstain from work, so that your ox and your ass may rest, and your home-born slave and the alien may refresh themselves.

13   Be attentive to every word of mine. You shall not invoke other gods: your lips shall not speak their names.

14    15   Three times a year you shall keep a pilgrim-feast to me. You shall celebrate the pilgrim-feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days; you shall eat unleavened cakes as I have commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt.

16   No one shall come into my presence ^note empty-handed. You shall celebrate the pilgrim-feast of Harvest, with the firstfruits of your work in sowing the land, and the pilgrim-feast of Ingathering at the end ^note of the year, when you bring in the fruits of all your work on the land. 17   These three times a year shall all your males come into the presence of ^note the Lord God.

18   You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice at the same time as anything leavened.

The fat of my festal offering shall not remain overnight till morning.

19   You shall bring the choicest firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.

You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

20   And now I send an angel before you to guard you on your way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. 21   Take heed of him and listen to his voice. Do not defy him; he will not pardon your rebelliousness, for my authority rests in him. 22   If you will only listen to his voice and do all I tell you, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will harass those who harass you. 23   My angel will go before you and bring you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the

Israel at Mount Sinai Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I will make an end of them. 24   You are not to bow down to their gods, nor worship them, nor observe their rites, but you shall tear down all their images and smash their sacred pillars. 25   Worship the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water. 26   I will take away all sickness out of your midst. None shall miscarry or be barren in your land. I will grant you a full span of life.

27   I will send my terror before you and throw into confusion all the peoples whom you find in your path. I will make all your enemies turn their backs. 28   I will spread panic before you to drive out in front of you the Hivites, the Canaanites and the Hittites. 29   I will not drive them out all in one year, or the land would become waste and the wild beasts too many for you. 30   I will drive them out little by little until your numbers have grown enough to take possession of the whole country. 31   I will establish your frontiers from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River. I will give the inhabitants of the country into your power, and you shall drive them out before you. 32    33   You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. They shall not stay in your land for fear they make you sin against me; for then you would worship their gods, and in this way you would be ensnared.

1   Then he said to Moses, ‘Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. While you are still at a distance, you are to bow down; 2   and then Moses shall approach the Lord by himself, but not the others. The people may not go up with him at all.’

3   Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, all his laws. The whole people answered with one voice and said, ‘We will do all that the Lord has told us.’ 4   Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and put up twelve sacred pillars, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. 5   He then sent the young men of Israel and they sacrificed bulls to the Lord as whole-offerings and shared-offerings. 6   Moses took half the blood and put it in basins and the other half he flung against ^note the altar. 7   Then he took the book of the covenant and read it aloud for all the people to hear. They said, ‘We will obey, and do all that the Lord has said.’ 8   Moses then took the blood and flung it over the people, saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you on the terms of this book.’

9   Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw ^note the God of Israel. 10   Under his feet there was, as it were, a pavement of sapphire, ^note clear blue as the very heavens; 11   but the Lord did not stretch out his hand towards the leaders of Israel.

Israel at Mount Sinai 12   They stayed there before God; ^note they ate and they drank. The Lord said to Moses, ‘Come up to me on the mountain, stay there and let me give you the tablets of stone, the law and the commandment, which I have written down that you may teach them.’ 13   Moses arose with Joshua his assistant and went up the mountain of God; 14   he said to the elders, ‘Wait for us here until we come back to you. You have Aaron and Hur; if anyone has a dispute, let him go to them.’ 15   So Moses went up the mountain and a cloud covered it. 16   The glory of the Lord rested upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered the mountain for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. 17   The glory of the Lord looked to the Israelites like a devouring fire on the mountain-top. 18   Moses entered the cloud and went up the mountain; there he stayed forty days and forty nights.

1    2   The Lord spoke to Moses and said: Tell the Israelites to set aside a contribution for me; you shall accept whatever contribution each man shall freely offer. 3   This is what you shall accept: gold, silver, copper; 4   violet, purple, and scarlet yarn; fine linen and goats' hair; tanned rams' skins, porpoise ^note-hides, and acacia-wood; 5    6   oil for the lamp, balsam for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense; 7   cornelian and other stones ready for setting in the ephod and the breast-piece. ^note 8    9   Make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them. Make it exactly according to the design I show you, the design for the Tabernacle and for all its furniture. This is how you must make it:

10   Make an Ark, a chest of acacia-wood, two and a half cubits long, one cubit and a half wide, and one cubit and a half high. 11   Overlay it with pure gold both inside and out, and put a band of gold all round it. 12   Cast four gold rings for it, and fasten them to its four feet, two rings on each side. 13   Make poles of acacia-wood and plate them with gold, and insert the poles in the rings at the sides of the Ark to lift it. 14    15   The poles shall remain in the rings of the Ark and never be removed. 16   Put into the Ark the Tokens of the Covenant, ^note which I shall give you. 17   Make a cover of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and one cubit and a half wide. 18   Make two gold cherubim of beaten work at the ends of the cover, one at each end; make each cherub of one piece with the cover. 19    20   They shall be made with wings outspread and pointing upwards, and shall screen the cover with their wings. They shall be face to face, looking inwards over the cover. 21   Put the cover above the Ark, and put into the Ark the Tokens that I shall give you. 22   It is there that I shall meet you, and from above the cover, between the two cherubim over the

Israel at Mount Sinai Ark of the Tokens, I shall deliver to you all my commands for the Israelites.

23   Make a table of acacia-wood, two cubits long, one cubit wide, and one cubit and a half high. 24   Overlay it with pure gold, and put a band of gold all round it. 25   Make a rim round it a hand's breadth wide, and a gold band round the rim. 26   Make four gold rings for the table, and put the rings at the four corners by the legs. 27   The rings, which are to receive the poles for carrying the table, must be adjacent to the rim. 28   Make the poles of acacia-wood and plate them with gold; they are to be used for carrying the table. 29   Make its dishes and saucers, and its flagons and bowls from which drink-offerings may be poured: make them of pure gold. 30   Put the Bread of the Presence ^note on the table, to be always before me.

31   Make a lamp-stand of pure gold. The lamp-stand, stem and branches, shall be of beaten work, its cups, both calyxes and petals, shall be of one piece with it. 32   There are to be six branches springing from its sides; three branches of the lamp-stand shall spring from the one side and three branches from the other side. 33   There shall be three cups shaped like almond blossoms, with calyx and petals, on the first branch, three cups shaped like almond blossoms, with calyx and petals, on the next branch, and similarly for all six branches springing from the lamp-stand. 34   On the main stem of the lamp-stand there are to be four cups shaped like almond blossoms, 35   with calyx and petals, and there shall be calyxes of one piece with it under the six branches which spring from the lamp-stand, a single calyx under each pair of branches. 36   The calyxes and the branches are to be of one piece with it, all a single piece of beaten work of pure gold. 37   Make seven lamps for this and mount them to shed light over the space in front of it. 38   Its tongs and firepans shall be of pure gold. 39   The lamp-stand and all these fittings shall be made from one talent of pure gold. 40   See that you work to the design which you were shown on the mountain.

1   Make the Tabernacle of ten hangings of finely woven linen, and violet, purple, and scarlet yarn, with cherubim worked on them, all made by a seamster. 2   The length of each hanging shall be twenty-eight cubits and the breadth four cubits; all are to be of the same size. 3   Five of the hangings shall be joined together, and similarly the other five. 4   Make violet loops along the edge of the last hanging in each set, fifty for each set; they must be opposite one another. 5    6   Make fifty gold fasteners, join the hangings one to another with them, and the Tabernacle will be a single whole.

7   Make hangings of goats' hair, eleven in all, to form a tent over the Tabernacle; 8   each hanging is to be thirty cubits long and four wide; all

Israel at Mount Sinai eleven are to be of the same size. 9   Join five of the hangings together, and similarly the other six; then fold the sixth hanging double at the front of the tent. 10   Make fifty loops on the edge of the last hanging in the first set and make fifty loops on the joining edge of the second set. 11   Make fifty bronze ^note fasteners, insert them into the loops and join up the tent to make it a single whole. 12   The additional length of the tent hanging ^note is to fall over the back of the Tabernacle. 13   On each side there will be an additional cubit in the length of the tent hangings; this shall fall over the two sides of the Tabernacle to cover it. 14   Make for the tent a cover of tanned rams' skins and an outer covering of porpoise-hides.

15    16   Make for the Tabernacle planks of acacia-wood as uprights, each plank ten cubits long and a cubit and a half wide, 17   and two tenons for each plank joined to each other. You shall do the same for all the planks of the Tabernacle. 18   Arrange the planks thus: twenty planks for the south side, 19   facing southwards, with forty silver sockets under them, two sockets under each plank for its two tenons; 20   and for the second or northern side of the Tabernacle, 21   twenty planks, with forty silver sockets, two under each plank. 22   Make six planks for the far end of the Tabernacle on the west. 23   Make two planks for the corners of the Tabernacle at the far end; 24   at the bottom they shall be alike, and at the top, both alike, ^note they shall fit into a single ring. Do the same for both of them; they shall be for the two corners. 25   There shall be eight planks with their silver sockets, sixteen sockets in all, two sockets under each plank severally.

26   Make bars of acacia-wood: five for the planks on the one side of the Tabernacle, 27   five for the planks on the other side and five for the planks on the far end of the Tabernacle on the west. 28   The middle bar is to run along from end to end half-way up the planks. 29   Overlay the planks with gold, make rings of gold on them to hold the bars, and plate the bars with gold. 30   Set up the Tabernacle according to the design you were shown on the mountain.

31   Make a Veil of finely woven linen and violet, purple, and scarlet yarn, with cherubim worked on it, all made by a seamster. 32   Fasten it with hooks of gold to four posts of acacia-wood overlaid with gold, standing in four silver sockets. 33   Hang the Veil below the fasteners and bring the Ark of the Tokens inside the Veil. Thus the Veil will make a clear separation for you between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. 34   Place the cover over the Ark of the Tokens in the Holy of Holies. 35   Put the table outside the Veil and the lamp-stand at the south side of the Tabernacle, opposite the table which you shall put at the north side. 36   For the entrance of the tent make a screen of finely woven linen,

Israel at Mount Sinai embroidered with violet, purple, and scarlet. 37   Make five posts of acacia-wood for the screen and overlay them with gold; make golden hooks for them and cast five bronze sockets for them.

1   Make the altar of acacia-wood; it shall be square, five cubits long by five cubits broad and three cubits high. 2   Let its horns at the four corners be of one piece with it, and overlay it with bronze. 3   Make for it pots to take away the fat and the ashes, with shovels, tossing bowls, forks, and firepans, all of bronze. 4   Make a grating for it of bronze network, and fit four bronze rings on the network at its four corners. 5   Put it below the ledge of the altar, so that the network comes half-way up the altar. 6   Make poles of acacia-wood for the altar and overlay them with bronze. 7   They shall be inserted in the rings at both sides of the altar to carry it. 8   Leave the altar a hollow shell. As you were shown on the mountain, so shall it be made.