When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was helping his brothers tend their flocks. He was a young man at that time, as were the children of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. But Joseph would come back and tell his father that his brothers were doing bad things. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his brothers, since he was born to him in his old age, so he had made a richly-embroidered tunic for him.

As it was, when Joseph arrived where his brothers were, they stripped off the tunic that Jacob had given him that is, the richly-embroidered tunic that he was wearing.

Then they stretched out the richly-embroidered tunic to dry, and brought it to their father. "We've found this," they reported. "Look at it and see if this is or isn't your son's tunic."

"The Lord has richly blessed my master and he has become very wealthy. The Lord has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, male and female servants, and camels and donkeys.

That I will, richly bless, thee, and, abundantly multiply, thy seed, as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is on the lip of the sea, - that thy seed may take possession of the gate of his foes: