father would die. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Except your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall see my face no more. And our father said, go again, and buy us a little food. And we said, we cannot go down: for we may not see the man's face, except our youngest brother be with us. And thy servant my father said unto us, Ye know that my wife bare me two sons; And the one went out from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces, and I saw him not since: And if ye take this also from me and mischief befall him, ye shall bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Now therefore when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us; seeing that his life is bound up in the lad's life; It shall come to pass, when he seeth the lad is not with us, that he will die: and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave. For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame to my father for ever. Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father."

"Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, cause every man to go out from me. And there stood

no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethen. And he wept aloud : and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph: doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God; and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Haste ye and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me Lord of all Egypt; Come down unto me, tarry And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast : And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.

not.

And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover, he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him."

CHAPTER XIII.

JACOB AND HIS FAMILY GO TO LIVE IN EGYPT. JACOB DIES. JOSEPH DIES.

WHEN Pharaoh heard of Joseph's brethren being come, "it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; and take your father and your households, and come. unto me and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. Now thou art commanded, this do ye; take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for

your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. Also regard not your stuff, for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours."

Then Joseph gave his brethren wagons, and provision for the journey, and loaded them with presents: he gave changes of raiment to each, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment; he also sent a present to his father "of the good things of Egypt," and corn, and bread, and meat for his father's journey. He then took leave of his brethren with this needful caution, "See that ye fall not out by the way."

"And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, and told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived: And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive : I will go and see him before I die.”

Jacob and his sons, with their wives and children, and their cattle, and all that they had, quitted Canaan, and came down into Egypt. "And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and presented himself unto him, and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. And Israel

said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive."

"And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee: the land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and thy brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell; and if thou knowest any men of activity amongst them, then make them rulers over my cattle."

"And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, how old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh."

Joseph established his father and brethren in Goshen, a small but fertile province on the east of the river Nile, where there was pasturage for their cattle, and where they could live apart from the Egyptians, from whom they differed widely in their habits. Meanwhile, Joseph continued to rule over Egypt; and he governed so wisely, and with such justice, that both the king and people loved and honoured him. During the seven years of famine, he took from the latter their money, and cattle, and afterwards their land, in exchange for the corn he had laid up during the years of plenty; but it was only to restore them