'Us' in the Bible

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”

The Lord God said, “Since man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.”

And he named him Noah, saying, “This one will bring us relief from the agonizing labor of our hands, caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.”

They said to each other, “Come, let us make oven-fired bricks.” They used brick for stone and asphalt for mortar.

And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Come, let Us go down there and confuse their language so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

They called out to Lot and said, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so we can have sex with them!”

for we are about to destroy this place because the outcry against its people is so great before the Lord, that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”

Then the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to sleep with us as is the custom of all the land.

Then Abimelech called Abraham in and said to him, “What have you done to us? How did I sin against you that you have brought such enormous guilt on me and on my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done.”

“Listen to us, lord. You are God’s chosen one among us. Bury your dead in our finest burial place. None of us will withhold from you his burial place for burying your dead.”

“Whose daughter are you?” he asked. “Please tell me, is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?”

But her brother and mother said, “Let the girl stay with us for about 10 days. Then she can go.”

and asked the servant, “Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?”The servant answered, “It is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself.

Then Abimelech said, “What is this you’ve done to us? One of the people could easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us.”

And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Leave us, for you are much too powerful for us.”

He moved from there and dug another, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Open Spaces and said, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

They replied, “We have clearly seen how the Lord has been with you. We think there should be an oath between two parties—between us and you. Let us make a covenant with you:

You will not harm us, just as we have not harmed you but have only done what was good to you, sending you away in peace. You are now blessed by the Lord.”

Are we not regarded by him as outsiders? For he has sold us and has certainly spent our money.

In fact, all the wealth that God has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children. So do whatever God has said to you.”

You’ve searched all my possessions! Have you found anything of yours? Put it here before my relatives and yours, and let them decide between the two of us.

Come now, let’s make a covenant, you and I. Let it be a witness between the two of us.”

If you mistreat my daughters or take other wives, though no one is with us, understand that God will be a witness between you and me.”

The God of Abraham, and the gods of Nahor—the gods of their father—will judge between us.” And Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac.

then tell him, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau. And look, he is behind us.’”

You are also to say, ‘Look, your servant Jacob is right behind us.’” For he thought, “I want to appease Esau with the gift that is going ahead of me. After that, I can face him, and perhaps he will forgive me.”

Intermarry with us; give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves.

Live with us. The land is before you. Settle here, move about, and acquire property in it.”

“We cannot do this thing,” they said to them. “Giving our sister to an uncircumcised man is a disgrace to us.

But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and go.”

“These men are peaceful toward us,” they said. “Let them live in our land and move about in it, for indeed, the region is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters as our wives and give our daughters to them.

But the men will agree to live with us and be one people only on this condition: if all our men are circumcised as they are.

Won’t their livestock, their possessions, and all their animals become ours? Only let us agree with them, and they will live with us.”

“Are you really going to reign over us?” his brothers asked him. “Are you really going to rule us?” So they hated him even more because of his dream and what he had said.

she called the household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “my husband brought a Hebrew man to make fools of us. He came to me so he could sleep with me, and I screamed as loud as I could.

Then she told him the same story: “The Hebrew slave you brought to us came to make a fool of me,

Now a young Hebrew, a slave of the captain of the guards, was with us there. We told him our dreams, he interpreted our dreams for us, and each had its own interpretation.

It turned out just the way he interpreted them to us: I was restored to my position, and the other man was hanged.”

Listen,” he went on, “I have heard there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us so that we will live and not die.”

Then they said to each other, “Obviously, we are being punished for what we did to our brother. We saw his deep distress when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this trouble has come to us.”

He said to his brothers, “My money has been returned! It’s here in my bag.” Their hearts sank. Trembling, they turned to one another and said, “What is this that God has done to us?”

“The man who is the lord of the country spoke harshly to us and accused us of spying on the country.

The man who is the lord of the country said to us, ‘This is how I will know if you are honest: Leave one brother with me, take food to relieve the hunger of your households, and go.

When they had used up the grain they had brought back from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy us some food.”

But Judah said to him, “The man specifically warned us: ‘You will not see me again unless your brother is with you.’

If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy food for you.

But if you will not send him, we will not go, for the man said to us, ‘You will not see me again unless your brother is with you.’”

They answered, “The man kept asking about us and our family: ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ And we answered him accordingly. How could we know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother here’?”

But the men were afraid because they were taken to Joseph’s house. They said, “We have been brought here because of the money that was returned in our bags the first time. They intend to overpower us, seize us, make us slaves, and take our donkeys.”

When we came to the place where we lodged for the night and opened our bags of grain, each one’s money was at the top of his bag! It was the full amount of our money, and we have brought it back with us.

We have brought additional money with us to buy food. We don’t know who put our money in the bags.”

If any of us is found to have it, he must die, and we also will become my lord’s slaves.”

But our father said, ‘Go again, and buy us some food.’

We told him, ‘We cannot go down unless our younger brother goes with us. So if our younger brother isn’t with us, we cannot see the man.’

Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons.

“So if I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us—his life is wrapped up with the boy’s life—

when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. Then your servants will have brought the gray hairs of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow.

When the money from the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan was gone, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us food. Why should we die here in front of you? The money is gone!”

Why should we die here in front of you—both us and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food. Then we with our land will become Pharaoh’s slaves. Give us seed so that we can live and not die, and so that the land won’t become desolate.”

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said to one another, “If Joseph is holding a grudge against us, he will certainly repay us for all the suffering we caused him.”