'Us' in the Bible

Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, to be like us. Let them be masters over the fish in the ocean, the birds that fly, the livestock, everything that crawls on the earth, and over the earth itself!"

Later, the LORD God said, "Look! The man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, so he won't reach out, also take from the tree of life, eat, and then live forever "

whom he named Noah, because he said, "May this one comfort us from our work, from pain that is caused by our manual labor, and from the ground that the LORD has cursed."

They called out to Lot and asked, "Where are the men who came to visit you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!"

because we're going to destroy it. Their outcry has come to the attention of the LORD, so he sent us here to destroy it!"

One day the firstborn told the younger one, "Our father is old, and there's no man in the land to have sex with us, as everybody else throughout all the earth does.

Then Abimelech called Abraham and asked him, "What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you, that you have brought such great sin against me and my kingdom? You've done things to me that ought not to have been done."

"Listen to us, sir. You are a mighty prince among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial tombs. None of us would refuse you his tomb for burying your dead."

"Sir, listen to me! The land is worth 400 shekels of silver, but what's that between us? You may bury your dead."

He asked her, "Whose daughter are you? 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 young lady stay with us a few days at least ten and after that she may go."

and asked the servant, "Who is that man coming in the field to meet us?"

"What have you done to us?" Abimelech asked. "Any minute now, one of the people could have had sex with your wife and you would have caused all of us to be guilty."

Then Abimelech ordered Isaac, "Move away from us! You've become more powerful than we are."

Then he left that area and dug still another well. Because they did not quarrel over that one, Isaac named it Rehoboth, because he used to say, "The LORD has enlarged the territory for us. We will prosper in the land."

"We've seen that the LORD is with you," they responded, "so we're proposing an agreement between us between us and you. Allow us to make a treaty with you

by which you'll agree not to do us any harm, just as we haven't harmed you, since we've done nothing but good for you after we sent you away in peace. As a result, you've been tremendously blessed by the LORD."

and informed them, "I've noticed that the way your father has been looking at us hasn't been as nice as it was just two days ago. But my father's God has been with me.

He's treating us like foreigners. He sold us and spent all of the money that rightfully belonged to us.

Furthermore, all of the wealth that God has stripped away from our father belongs to us now and to our children. So do everything that God tells you to do."

Now that you've searched all my belongings, what did you find that belongs to your house? Set it here in front of our relatives and we'll let them judge between us!

If you mistreat my daughters or if you take other wives besides them, though no one is watching us, keep in mind that God stands as a witness between you and me."

May Abraham's God and Nahor's god judge between us."

then you are to reply, "We're from your servant Jacob. The herds are a gift. He's sending them to my master, Esau. Look! There he is, coming along behind us.'"

You are to tell him, "Look! Your servant Jacob is coming along behind us.'"

Intermarry with us. Give your daughters to us and take our sons for yourselves.

Live with us anywhere you want. Live, trade, and grow rich in it."

They told them, "We can't do this. We can't give our sister to a man who isn't circumcised, because that would be insulting to us.

But we'll agree to your request, only if you will become like us by circumcising every male among you.

But if you won't listen to us, then we're going to take our daughter and leave."

"These men are at peace with us," they announced. "Therefore, let them live in the land and trade in it. Look! The land is large enough for them. Let's take their daughters as wives for ourselves and let's give our sons to them.

"However," they added, "only on this condition will the men consent to live with us and be united as a single people with us: every male among us will have to be circumcised just as they are.

Shouldn't all their cattle, acquisitions, and animals belong to us? So, let's give our consent to them, and then they'll live with us."

At this, his brothers replied, "Do you really think you're going to rule us or lord it over us?" So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his interpretations of them.

and yelled for her household servants. "Look!" she cried out. "My husband brought in a Hebrew man to humiliate us. He came in here to have sex with me, but I screamed out loud!

and then this is what she told him: "That Hebrew slave whom you brought to us came in here to rape me.

There was a Hebrew young man incarcerated with us, who was also working as a servant to the captain of the bodyguard.

"We each related our dreams, and then he interpreted them for us. He provided specific meanings for each of our dreams. And what he interpreted for each of us came true! Pharaoh restored me to my responsibilities, but he executed the other man."

Pay attention now! I've heard that there is grain in Egypt, so go down there and buy some grain for us, so we can live, instead of dying."

"We're all guilty because of what we did to our brother!" they told each other. "We kept on watching his suffering while he pleaded with us! We're in this mess because we wouldn't listen!"

He reported to his brothers, "My money has been returned! It's right here in my sack!" Trembling with mounting consternation, each of them asked one another, "What is God doing to us?"

"The man who was in charge of the land spoke harshly to us," they said. "He accused us of being spies!

Our father has twelve sons, but one of us isn't alive anymore, and our youngest brother is with our father today back home in Canaan.'

As a result, when Jacob's family was beginning to eat the last of the grain that they had brought back from Egypt, their father Jacob told his sons, "Go back to Egypt and buy us some food."

But Judah reminded him, "The man distinctly warned us: "You'll never see my face unless your brother comes with you.'

So if you send our brother with us, we'll go down and buy some food.

But if you don't send him, we're not going, because the man told us, "You'll never see my face unless your brother is with you.'"

"The man specifically asked about us and our relatives," they responded. "He asked us, "Is your father still alive?' and "Do you have another brother?' So we answered his questions. How could we have known that he would tell us to bring our brother back with us?"

"Send the young man with me," Judah told his father Israel, "and we'll get up and go so we can survive and not die and that includes all of us, you and our families.

The men were terrified as they were being taken to Joseph's palace. "It's because of that money that was returned to our sacks the first time we were brought to him," they reasoned. "He's seeking an excuse to attack us, enslave us, and confiscate our donkeys!"

when we arrived at our overnight lodging place, we opened our sacks and discovered each man's money was still in the mouth of his sack. All of our money was there! We've brought it back with us in full.

""Go back,' our father ordered, "and buy us a little food.'

"But we told him, "We can't go back there. If our youngest brother accompanies us, we'll go back, but we cannot see the man's face again unless our youngest brother accompanies us.'

"Then your servant, our father, told us, "You know my wife bore me two sons.

"So when I go back to your servant, my father, and the young man isn't with us, since he's constantly living life focused on his son,

when he notices that the young man hasn't come back with us, he'll die, and your servants really will have brought death to your servant, our father, along with his sad, gray hair!

"I'm your brother Joseph, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt!" he told them. "But don't be distressed or angry at yourselves because you sold me here, because God sent me ahead of you all in order to deliver us.

After all the money had been spent throughout Egypt and Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and demanded, "Give us food! Why should we die right in front of you? Our money is spent!"

So why should we and our land die right in front of you? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we and our land will be slaves to Pharaoh. Give us seed, so we can survive and not die, and so the land won't stay desolate."

Later, after Joseph's brothers faced the reality of their father's death, they asked themselves, "What happens if Joseph decides to hold a grudge against us? What if he pays us back in full for all the wrong things we did to him?"

"Before he died, your father left some instructions. He told us, "Tell Joseph, "Please forgive your brothers' offenses. I beg you, forgive their sins, because they wronged you."' So please forgive the transgression of the servants of your father's God."