On the third day it was Pharaoh's birthday, so he gave a feast for all his servants. He "lifted up" the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker in the midst of his servants.

but the chief baker he impaled, just as Joseph had predicted.

At the end of two full years Pharaoh had a dream. As he was standing by the Nile,

Then he fell asleep again and had a second dream: There were seven heads of grain growing on one stalk, healthy and good.

We each had a dream one night; each of us had a dream with its own meaning.

It happened just as he had said to us -- Pharaoh restored me to my office, but he impaled the baker."

Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. But I have heard about you, that you can interpret dreams."

Then seven other cows came up after them; they were scrawny, very bad-looking, and lean. I had never seen such bad-looking cows as these in all the land of Egypt!

When they had eaten them, no one would have known that they had done so, for they were just as bad-looking as before. Then I woke up.

Pharaoh had him ride in the chariot used by his second-in-command, and they cried out before him, "Kneel down!" So he placed him over all the land of Egypt.

Then the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had predicted. There was famine in all the other lands, but throughout the land of Egypt there was food.

Then Joseph remembered the dreams he had dreamed about them, and he said to them, "You are spies; you have come to see if our land is vulnerable!"

He turned away from them and wept. When he turned around and spoke to them again, he had Simeon taken from them and tied up before their eyes.

They returned to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan and told him all the things that had happened to them, saying,

When they finished eating the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, "Return, buy us a little more food."

Israel said, "Why did you bring this trouble on me by telling the man you had one more brother?"

But if we had not delayed, we could have traveled there and back twice by now!"

"Everything is fine," the man in charge of Joseph's household told them. "Don't be afraid. Your God and the God of your father has given you treasure in your sacks. I had your money." Then he brought Simeon out to them.

They got their gifts ready for Joseph's arrival at noon, for they had heard that they were to have a meal there.

When Joseph came home, they presented him with the gifts they had brought inside, and they bowed down to the ground before him.

They had not gone very far from the city when Joseph said to the servant who was over his household, "Pursue the men at once! When you overtake them, say to them, 'Why have you repaid good with evil?

So the sons of Israel did as he said. Joseph gave them wagons as Pharaoh had instructed, and he gave them provisions for the journey.

But when they related to him everything Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to transport him, their father Jacob's spirit revived.

So Israel began his journey, taking with him all that he had. When he came to Beer Sheba he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.

Then Jacob started out from Beer Sheba, and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob, their little children, and their wives in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent along to transport him.

Jacob and all his descendants took their livestock and the possessions they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and they went to Egypt.

So Joseph settled his father and his brothers. He gave them territory in the land of Egypt, in the best region of the land, the land of Rameses, just as Pharaoh had commanded.

When that year was over, they came to him the next year and said to him, "We cannot hide from our lord that the money is used up and the livestock and the animals belong to our lord. Nothing remains before our lord except our bodies and our land.

But he did not purchase the land of the priests because the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh and they ate from their allotment that Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land.

Jacob said, "Swear to me that you will do so." So Joseph gave him his word. Then Israel bowed down at the head of his bed.

Israel stretched out his right hand and placed it on Ephraim's head, although he was the younger. Crossing his hands, he put his left hand on Manasseh's head, for Manasseh was the firstborn.

When Joseph saw that his father placed his right hand on Ephraim's head, it displeased him. So he took his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head.

Joseph said to his father, "Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head."

The blessings of your father are greater than the blessings of the eternal mountains 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.

When the days of mourning had passed, Joseph said to Pharaoh's royal court, "If I have found favor in your sight, please say to Pharaoh,

So the sons of Jacob did for him just as he had instructed them.

After he buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, along with his brothers and all who had accompanied him to bury his father.

But the midwives feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.

The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a healthy child, she hid him for three months.

But when she was no longer able to hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him and sealed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and set it among the reeds along the edge of the Nile.

In those days, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and observed their hard labor, and he saw an Egyptian man attacking a Hebrew man, one of his own people.

Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and began to draw water and fill the troughs in order to water their father's flock.

When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him from within the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am."

He added, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had sent him and all the signs that he had commanded him.

Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people,

and the people believed. When they heard that the Lord had attended to the Israelites and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed down close to the ground.

The Israelite foremen whom Pharaoh's slave masters had set over them were beaten and were asked, "Why did you not complete your requirement for brickmaking as in the past -- both yesterday and today?"

When Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, they did so, just as the Lord had commanded them -- Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants and it became a snake.

Yet Pharaoh's heart became hard, and he did not listen to them, just as the Lord had predicted.

Moses and Aaron did so, just as the Lord had commanded. Moses raised the staff and struck the water that was in the Nile right before the eyes of Pharaoh and his servants, and all the water that was in the Nile was turned to blood.

But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts, and so Pharaoh's heart remained hard, and he refused to listen to Moses and Aaron -- just as the Lord had predicted.

Then Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried to the Lord because of the frogs that he had brought on Pharaoh.

But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not listen to them, just as the Lord had predicted.

The magicians said to Pharaoh, "It is the finger of God!" But Pharaoh's heart remained hard, and he did not listen to them, just as the Lord had predicted.

Pharaoh sent representatives to investigate, and indeed, not even one of the livestock of Israel had died. But Pharaoh's heart remained hard, and he did not release the people.

But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not listen to them, just as the Lord had predicted to Moses.

Hail fell and fire mingled with the hail; the hail was so severe that there had not been any like it in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.

(Now the flax and the barley were struck by the hail, for the barley had ripened and the flax was in bud.

So Pharaoh's heart remained hard, and he did not release the Israelites, as the Lord had predicted through Moses.

So Moses extended his staff over the land of Egypt, and then the Lord brought an east wind on the land all that day and all night. The morning came, and the east wind had brought up the locusts!

The locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and settled down in all the territory of Egypt. It was very severe; there had been no locusts like them before, nor will there be such ever again.

They covered the surface of all the ground, so that the ground became dark with them, and they ate all the vegetation of the ground and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Nothing green remained on the trees or on anything that grew in the fields throughout the whole land of Egypt.

No one could see another person, and no one could rise from his place for three days. But the Israelites had light in the places where they lived.

Do not eat it raw or boiled in water, but roast it over the fire with its head, its legs, and its entrails.

and the Israelites went away and did exactly as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

Now the Israelites had done as Moses told them -- they had requested from the Egyptians silver and gold items and clothing.

They baked cakes of bread without yeast using the dough they had brought from Egypt, for it was made without yeast -- because they were thrust out of Egypt and were not able to delay, they could not prepare food for themselves either.

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the Israelites solemnly swear, "God will surely attend to you, and you will carry my bones up from this place with you."

When it was reported to the king of Egypt that the people had fled, the heart of Pharaoh and his servants was turned against the people, and the king and his servants said, "What in the world have we done? For we have released the people of Israel from serving us!"

He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving, and the Egyptians said, "Let's flee from Israel, for the Lord fights for them against Egypt!"

When Israel saw the great power that the Lord had exercised over the Egyptians, they feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this desert to kill this whole assembly with hunger!"

When the layer of dew had evaporated, there on the surface of the desert was a thin flaky substance, thin like frost on the earth.

When they measured with an omer, the one who gathered much had nothing left over, and the one who gathered little lacked nothing; each one had gathered what he could eat.

So they gathered it each morning, each person according to what he could eat, and when the sun got hot, it would melt.

So they put it aside until the morning, just as Moses had commanded, and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it.

So Joshua fought against Amalek just as Moses had instructed him;and Moses and Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law, heard about all that God had done for Moses and for his people Israel, that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.

Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took Moses' wife Zipporah after he had sent her back,

and her two sons, one of whom was named Gershom (for Moses had said, "I have been a foreigner in a foreign land"),

and the other Eliezer (for Moses had said, "The God of my father has been my help and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh").

Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to Egypt for Israel's sake, and all the hardship that had come on them along the way, and how the Lord had delivered them.

Jethro rejoiced because of all the good that the Lord had done for Israel, whom he had delivered from the hand of Egypt.

But you choose from the people capable men, God-fearing, men of truth, those who hate bribes, and put them over the people as rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.

Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he had said.

So Moses came and summoned the elders of Israel. He set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him,

You must set boundaries for the people all around, saying, 'Take heed to yourselves not to go up on the mountain nor touch its edge. Whoever touches the mountain will surely be put to death!

Now Mount Sinai was completely covered with smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire, and its smoke went up like the smoke of a great furnace, and the whole mountain shook violently.

If he came in by himself he will go out by himself; if he had a wife when he came in, then his wife will go out with him.

"If men fight and hit a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no serious injury, he will surely be punished in accordance with what the woman's husband demands of him, and he will pay what the court decides.

But if the ox had the habit of goring, and its owner was warned, and he did not take the necessary precautions, and then it killed a man or a woman, the ox must be stoned and the man must be put to death.

Or if it is known that the ox had the habit of goring, and its owner did not take the necessary precautions, he must surely pay ox for ox, and the dead animal will become his.

"If a man steals an ox or a sheep and kills it or sells it, he must pay back five head of cattle for the ox, and four sheep for the one sheep.

Take heed because of him, and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him.

"They are to make an ark of acacia wood -- its length is to be three feet nine inches, its width two feet three inches, and its height two feet three inches.

"You are to make a table of acacia wood; its length is to be three feet, its width one foot six inches, and its height two feet three inches.

"You are to make the altar of acacia wood, seven feet six inches long, and seven feet six inches wide; the altar is to be square, and its height is to be four feet six inches.

The length of the courtyard is to be one hundred fifty feet and the width seventy-five feet, and the height of the fine twisted linen hangings is to be seven and a half feet, with their bronze bases.

You are to put the turban on his head and put the holy diadem on the turban.