Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have dreamed a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it; and I have heard it said about you that you can understand a dream and interpret it.” Joseph answered Pharaoh, “It is not in me [to interpret the dream]; God [not I] will give Pharaoh a favorable answer [through me].” So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “In my dream, I was standing on the bank of the Nile; and seven fat, sleek and handsome cows came up out of the river, and they grazed in the reed grass [of a marshy pasture]. Lo, seven other cows came up after them, very ugly and gaunt [just skin and bones]; such emaciated animals as I have never seen in all the land of Egypt. And the lean and ugly cows ate up the first seven fat cows. Yet when they had devoured them, it could not be detected that they had eaten them, because they were still as thin and emaciated as before. Then I awoke [but again I fell asleep and dreamed]. I saw in my [second] dream, seven ears [of grain], plump and good, growing on a single stalk; and lo, seven [other] ears, withered, thin, and scorched by the east wind, sprouted after them; and the thin ears devoured the seven good ears. Now I told this to the magicians and soothsayers, but there was no one who could explain it [to me].”
Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The [two] dreams are one [and the same and have one interpretation]; God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good ears are seven years; the [two] dreams are one [and the same]. The seven thin and ugly cows that came up after them are seven years; and also the seven thin ears, dried up and scorched by the east wind, they are seven years of famine and hunger. This is the message just as I have told Pharaoh: God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do. Listen very carefully: seven years of great abundance will come throughout all the land of Egypt; but afterward seven years of famine and hunger will come, and [there will be such desperate need that] all the great abundance [of the previous years] will be forgotten in the land of Egypt [as if it never happened], and famine and destitution will ravage and destroy the land. So the great abundance will become forgotten in the land because of that subsequent famine, for it will be very severe. That the dream was repeated twice to Pharaoh [and in two different ways] indicates that this matter is fully determined and established by God, and God will bring it to pass very quickly. So now let Pharaoh [prepare ahead and] look for a man discerning and clear-headed and wise, and set him [in charge] over the land of Egypt [as governor under Pharaoh]. Let Pharaoh take action to appoint overseers and officials over the land, and set aside one-fifth [of the produce] of the [entire] land of Egypt in the seven years of abundance.
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