Genesis 47

1Joseph went into Pharaoh and said, My father and my brothers and all their families are here. They have all their animals and everything they own from the land of Canaan with them. They are now in the land of Goshen

2Joseph chose five of his brothers to be with him before the Pharaoh.

3Pharaoh asked Joseph’s brethren: What kind of work do you do? Joseph’s brethren said: We are shepherds, and our fathers before us were also shepherds.

4Joseph’s brethren asked Pharaoh: May we stay in your land as strangers? The famine is very bad in Canaan. There are no fields left with grass for our animals, so we have come to live in this land. We ask you to please let us live in Goshen.

5Pharaoh said to Joseph: Your father and your brothers have come to you.

6They may stay anywhere in Egypt. Choose the best part of the land for your father and your brethren. Your father and your brethren may stay in Goshen. If your brethren are good shepherds, you must tell them also to look after my sheep.

7Later Joseph brought his father Jacob to meet Pharaoh.. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh.

8Pharaoh asked Jacob: How old are you?

9Jacob said to Pharaoh: I have had a short life with many troubles. I am only 130 years old. My father and his ancestors lived to be much older than I am.

10Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh and left from his meeting with Pharaoh.

11Joseph did what Pharaoh said and gave his father and brothers land in Egypt. It was the best land in Egypt, in the eastern part of the country, around Rameses

12Joseph provided and supplied his father and his brothers and all his father’s household with food, according to the needs of their children.

13The famine got worse; there was no food anywhere in the land. The people of Egypt and Canaan became weak with hunger.

14Joseph started selling wheat to the people of Egypt and Canaan and Joseph got all the money that they had. Joseph took the money into Pharaoh’s house.

15Later there was no money left in Egypt and Canaan. The people of Egypt came to Joseph and asked him: ‘Please give us food. We have no more money. Sir, if you do not give us food, we will die here in front of you.

16Joseph said: If you do not have any money, give me your cattle, and I will give you food.

17So the people brought their cattle to Joseph and Joseph gave them food. Joseph gave them food for their horses, sheep, goats, cattle and donkeys. And that year, Joseph gave them food and took their animals.

18But the next year the people had no animals and nothing to buy food with. So they went to Joseph and said, You know that we have no money left, and all our animals belong to you. So we have nothing left, only what you see, our bodies and our land

19We will die while you are watching. But if you give us food, we will give Pharaoh our land, and we will be his slaves. Give us seed so that we can plant. Then we will live and not die, and the land will grow food for us again

20Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. Everyone in Egypt had to sell their land because they had no food to eat. This is how all the land in Egypt became Pharaoh’s land.

21And as for the people, Joseph relocated them to cities from one end of Egypt’s border to the other.

22Joseph bought all the land in Egypt, but he did not buy the land of the priests, because the priest lived off the food Pharaoh given them; therefore they did not sell their land.

23Joseph told the people: ‘I have bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Here is seed for you. Sow it on the ground.

24But when you cut and harvest the wheat, you must give one 5th to Pharaoh and you can keep rest for yourselves. It is your seed that you must sow to get food to eat for you, your children and all the people in your families.’

25They said to Joseph: ‘You have saved our lives. You were good to us and we will be Pharaoh’s slaves.

26And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part, except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh’s.

27Israel, Jacob, and his family lived in the land of Goshen in Egypt. They got many things and had a lot of babies, and later they became a big and powerful nation.

28Jacob lived in Egypt for 17 years. Jacob life he lived was 147 years old

29Jacob felt the time was coming for him to die. Jacob called his son Joseph and said to him: Will you please help me and do something for me. If you love me, put, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt:

30When I die, you must take my body out of Egypt and you must bury me with my forefathers in the grave of my family.

31And Jacob said, Swear unto me. And he sware unto him. Then Israel Jacob bowed in worship at the head of the bed.