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.

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