Joseph and his brothers

Jacob had twelve sons and one favorite, and everyone knew which. Joseph was the son of Rachel, the wife Jacob loved most, and he got a coat to prove it. He was seventeen. He also brought his father bad reports about his brothers, and he told them about a dream where their sheaves of grain bowed down to his. Then another where the sun, moon and eleven stars bowed. Even his father told him off for that one.

The brothers were grazing the flocks a long way from home when Joseph came to check on them. They saw him coming from a distance and made a plan. Reuben talked them down from murder to a dry pit. Then a caravan passed, and Judah had a better idea: why kill him when you can sell him? Twenty pieces of silver. They dipped the coat in goat's blood and let their father draw his own conclusion. Jacob refused to be comforted.

In Egypt, Joseph is bought by Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's. He's good at everything. He ends up running the whole house. Then Potiphar's wife wants him, and keeps wanting him, day after day. He refuses. She grabs his clothes, he runs, she keeps the clothes and tells her husband a story. Joseph goes to prison for a thing he didn't do.

He ends up running the prison too. Two of Pharaoh's officials land in there and have dreams the same night; Joseph interprets both, correctly. The cupbearer gets his job back and Joseph asks one favour: remember me. The next verse says he forgot. Two more years go by.

Then Pharaoh dreams. Seven fat cows eaten by seven thin ones, seven full heads of grain swallowed by seven empty ones, and none of his experts can explain it. The cupbearer suddenly remembers. Joseph is shaved, changed and standing in front of Pharaoh in a hurry, and he says up front that the answer isn't in him, it's God's. Seven years of plenty, then seven of famine. Store the surplus. Pharaoh puts him in charge of the whole country. He's thirty.

The famine comes, and so do his brothers, looking for grain. They bow to the ground in front of a man they don't recognize. He recognises them. What follows is a long, strange test: he accuses them of spying, jails one, sends the rest home with their money secretly returned, and insists they bring back the youngest, Benjamin. Twice he has to leave the room to cry.

The turning point is Judah, the brother who sold him. When Joseph frames Benjamin and threatens to keep him, Judah steps forward and offers to take his place, because losing another son would kill their father. Joseph can't hold it any longer. He clears the room, breaks down loud enough for the Egyptians to hear, and says: I am Joseph. Does my father still live? The brothers can't speak. He tells them not to be angry with themselves. You sold me here. God sent me here.

The whole family moves to Egypt. Years later Jacob dies, and the brothers panic, sure Joseph has been waiting for this. They send a message begging forgiveness. Joseph cries again. Then the line the whole story has been building toward: you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. He looks after them until he dies, at a hundred and ten, still in Egypt, asking to be carried home one day.