It was determined ¹  that from the descendants of the priests, the following had taken foreign wives: from the descendants of Jeshua son of Jozadak, and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah.

Do not forsake your friend and your father’s friend, and do not enter your brother’s house in the day of your disaster; a neighbor nearby is better than a brother far away. ¹ 

Do not stare at me because ¹  I am dark, for ²  the sun has burned my skin. ³  My brothers ⁴  were angry ⁵  with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards. Alas, my own vineyard ⁶  I could not keep! ⁷ 

The Beloved’s Brothers: We have a little sister, and as yet she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for? ¹ 

May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. You will be ¹  lord ²  over your brothers, and the sons of your mother will bow down to you. ³  May those who curse you be cursed, and those who bless you be blessed.”

Stay there ¹  until your brother’s anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I’ll send someone to bring you back from there. ²  Why should I lose both of you in one day?” ³ 

This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, his seventeen-year-old son, ¹  was taking care of ²  the flocks with his brothers. Now he was a youngster ³  working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. ⁴  Joseph brought back a bad report about them ⁵  to their father.

Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until Shelah my son grows up.” For he thought, ¹  “I don’t want him to die like his brothers.” ²  So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.

When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger ¹  to them and spoke to them harshly. He asked, “Where do you come from?” They answered, ²  “From the land of Canaan, to buy grain for food.” ³ 

They set a place for him, a separate place for his brothers, ¹  and another for the Egyptians who were eating with him. (The Egyptians are not able to eat with Hebrews, for the Egyptians think it is disgusting ²  to do so.) ³ 

The land of Egypt is before you; settle your father and your brothers in the best region of the land. They may live in the land of Goshen. If you know of any highly capable men ¹  among them, put them in charge ²  of my livestock.”

The blessings of your father are greater than ¹  the blessings of the eternal mountains ²  or the desirable things of the age-old hills. They will be on the head of Joseph and on the brow of the prince of his brothers. ³ 

‘Tell Joseph this: Please forgive the sin of your brothers and the wrong they did when they treated you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sin of the servants of the God of your father.” When this message was reported to him, Joseph wept. ¹ 

Then Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar his other two sons, “Do not ¹  dishevel the hair of your heads ²  and do not tear your garments, so that you do not die and so that wrath does not come on the whole congregation. Your brothers, all the house of Israel, are to mourn the burning which the Lord has caused, ³ 

Just then ¹  one of the Israelites came and brought to his brothers ²  a Midianite woman in the plain view of Moses and of ³  the whole community of the Israelites, while they ⁴  were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

and if his father has no brothers, then you are to give his inheritance to his relative nearest to him from his family, and he will possess it. This will be for the Israelites a legal requirement, ¹  as the Lord commanded Moses.’”

What is going to happen to us? Our brothers have drained away our courage ¹  by describing people who are more numerous ²  and taller than we are, and great cities whose defenses appear to be as high as heaven ³  itself! Moreover, they said they saw ⁴  Anakites ⁵  there.”

If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, ¹  and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. ² 

then his sister-in-law must approach him in view of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. ¹  She will then respond, “Thus may it be done to any man who does not maintain his brother’s family line!” ² 

with the harvest of the earth and its fullness and the pleasure of him who resided in the burning bush. ¹  May blessing rest on Joseph’s head, and on the top of the head of the one set apart ²  from his brothers.