¹ Sorrow to those who are resting in comfort in Zion, and to those who have no fear of danger in the mountain of Samaria, the noted men of the chief of the nations, to whom the people of Israel come!

² Go on to Calneh and see; and from there Go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines: are you better than these kingdoms? or is your land wider than theirs?

³ You who put far away the evil day, causing the rule of the violent to come near;

⁴ Who are resting on beds of ivory, stretched out on soft seats, feasting on lambs from the flock and young oxen from the cattle-house;

⁵ Making foolish songs to the sound of corded instruments, and designing for themselves instruments of music, like David;

⁶ Drinking wine in basins, rubbing themselves with the best oils; but they have no grief for the destruction of Joseph.

⁷ So now they will go away prisoners with the first of those who are made prisoners, and the loud cry of those who were stretched out will come to an end.

⁸ The Lord God has taken an oath by himself, says The Lord, the God of armies: the pride of Jacob is disgusting to me, and I have hate for his great houses: so I will give up the town with everything in it.

⁹ Then it will come about that if there are still ten men in a house, death will overtake them.

¹⁰ And when a man's relation, even the one who is responsible for burning his body, lifting him up to take his bones out of the house, says to him who is in the inmost part of the house, Is there still anyone with you? and he says, No; then he will say, Keep quiet, for the name of the Lord may not be named.

¹¹ For see, at the order of the Lord the great house will be full of cracks and the little house will be broken.

¹² Is it possible for horses to go running on the rock? may the sea be ploughed with oxen? for the right to be turned by you into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into a bitter plant?

¹³ You whose joy is in a thing of no value, who say, Have we not taken for ourselves horns by the strength which is ours?

¹⁴ For see, I will send against you a nation, O Israel, says the Lord, the God of armies, ruling you cruelly from the way into Hamath as far as the stream of the Arabah.

¹ Now Jacob was living in the land where his father had made a place for himself, in the land of Canaan.

² These are the generations of Jacob: Joseph, a boy seventeen years old, was looking after the flock, together with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph gave their father a bad account of them.

³ Now the love which Israel had for Joseph was greater than his love for all his other children, because he got him when he was an old man: and he had a long coat made for him.

⁴ And because his brothers saw that Joseph was dearer to his father than all the others, they were full of hate for him, and would not say a kind word to him.

⁵ Now Joseph had a dream, and he gave his brothers an account of it, which made their hate greater than ever.

⁶ And he said to them, Let me give you the story of my dream.

⁷ We were in the field, getting the grain stems together, and my grain kept upright, and yours came round and went down on the earth before mine.

⁸ And his brothers said to him, Are you to be our king? will you have authority over us? And because of his dream and his words, their hate for him became greater than ever.

⁹ Then he had another dream, and gave his brothers an account of it, saying, I have had another dream: the sun and the moon and eleven stars gave honour to me.

¹⁰ And he gave word of it to his father and his brothers; but his father protesting said, What sort of a dream is this? am I and your mother and your brothers to go down on our faces to the earth before you?

¹¹ And his brothers were full of envy; but his father kept his words in mind.

¹² Now his brothers went to keep watch over their father's flock in Shechem.

¹³ And Israel said to Joseph, Are not your brothers with the flock in Shechem? come, I will send you to them. And he said to him, Here am I.

¹⁴ And he said to him, Go now, and see if your brothers are well and how the flock is; then come back and give me word. So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.

¹⁵ And a man saw him wandering in the country, and said to him, What are you looking for?

¹⁶ And he said, I am looking for my brothers; please give me word of where they are keeping their flock.

¹⁷ And the man said, They have gone away from here, for they said in my hearing, Let us go to Dothan. So Joseph went after them and came up with them at Dothan.

¹⁸ But they saw him when he was a long way off, and before he came near them they made a secret design against him to put him to death;

¹⁹ Saying to one another, See, here comes this dreamer.

²⁰ Let us now put him to death and put his body into one of these holes, and we will say, An evil beast has put him to death: then we will see what becomes of his dreams.

²¹ But Reuben, hearing these words, got him out of their hands, saying, Let us not take his life.

²² Do not put him to a violent death, but let him be placed in one of the holes; this he said to keep him safe from their hands, with the purpose of taking him back to his father again.

²³ So when Joseph came to his brothers, they took off his long coat which he had on;

²⁴ And they took him and put him in the hole: now the hole had no water in it.

²⁵ Then seating themselves, they took their meal: and looking up, they saw a travelling band of Ishmaelites, coming from Gilead on their way to Egypt, with spices and perfumes on their camels.

²⁶ And Judah said to his brothers, What profit is there in putting our brother to death and covering up his blood?

²⁷ Let us give him to these Ishmaelites for a price, and let us not put violent hands on him, for he is our brother, our flesh. And his brothers gave ear to him.

²⁸ And some traders from Midian went by; so pulling Joseph up out of the hole, they gave him to the Ishmaelites for twenty bits of silver, and they took him to Egypt.

²⁹ Now when Reuben came back to the hole, Joseph was not there; and giving signs of grief,

³⁰ He went back to his brothers, and said, The child is gone; what am I to do?

³¹ Then they took Joseph's coat, and put on it some of the blood from a young goat which they had put to death,

³² And they took the coat to their father, and said, We came across this; is it your son's coat or not?

³³ And he saw that it was, and said, It is my son's coat; an evil beast has put him to death; without doubt Joseph has come to a cruel end.

³⁴ Then Jacob, giving signs of grief, put on haircloth, and went on weeping for his son day after day.

³⁵ And all his sons and all his daughters came to give him comfort, but he would not be comforted, saying with weeping, I will go down to the underworld to my son. So great was his father's sorrow for him.

³⁶ And in Egypt the men of Midian gave him for a price to Potiphar, a captain of high position in Pharaoh's house.