Genesis 45

1Joseph could hold back no longer in front of all the attendants around him. “Send everyone out of here!” he cried. So he was alone with his brothers when he told them who he was. 2He wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and word of it reached Pharaoh’s household. 3“I am Joseph!” he said to his brothers. “Is my father really still alive?” His brothers were too shaken to say a word, dismayed to be standing before him. 4Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please, come closer.” When they had come closer, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt. 5But now, do not be upset, and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here. It was God who sent me on ahead of you, to keep people alive. 6The famine has now gripped the land for two years, and for five more years there will be no plowing and no harvest. 7God sent me ahead of you to make sure your family would survive on the earth, and to save your lives in a great act of rescue. 8So it was not really you who sent me here, but God. And he has made me a father to Pharaoh, master of his whole household and ruler of all Egypt. 9Go up to my father quickly and tell him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me master of all Egypt. Come down to me without wasting any time. 10You can settle in the region of Goshen and be close to me, you and your children and grandchildren, your sheep and goats and cattle, and everything that belongs to you. 11I will supply your needs there, since there are still five years of famine ahead. Otherwise you, your family and all you have will end up in want.’ 12You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that it is really I who am speaking to you. 13Tell my father about all the honor I have in Egypt and everything you have seen. And hurry, bring my father down here.” 14Then he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin wept as he embraced him. 15He kissed each of his brothers and wept as he held them. Only then were his brothers able to talk with him. 16News reached Pharaoh’s palace that Joseph’s brothers had arrived, and Pharaoh and his officials were glad. 17Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Tell your brothers to load up their animals and return to the land of Canaan. 18They are to bring their father and their families and come to me. I will give them the best land in Egypt, and they will live off the richest produce in the country. 19And you are to give them this order as well: take carts from Egypt for their children and their wives, and bring their father here. 20They need not worry about the things they leave behind, because the best of all Egypt will be theirs.” 21The sons of Israel did as they were told. Joseph gave them carts at Pharaoh’s command, and supplies for the road. 22He gave each of them a new set of clothes, but to Benjamin he gave about 7.5 pounds of silver and five sets of clothes. 23To his father he sent the same, and more: ten donkeys laden with the finest goods of Egypt, and ten female donkeys carrying grain, bread and food for his father’s journey. 24Then he sent his brothers off, and as they left he told them, “Do not argue with each other on the way.” 25So they left Egypt and went up to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan. 26“Joseph is alive!” they told him. “He is governor of the whole land of Egypt!” Jacob was stunned; he could not believe them. 27But when they repeated to him everything Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the carts Joseph had sent to carry him, their father Jacob’s spirit came back to life. 28“Enough!” said Israel. “My son Joseph is still alive! I will go and see him before I die.”