One day, when his brothers had gone to Shechem to care for their father’s flock, Israel called for Joseph and said to him, “Your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. I want you to go join them.”
“Yes, Father, I’ll go.” Joseph replied.
Jacob added, “Go find out how your brothers are doing with the flocks and bring word back to me.” So, his father sent him off from the valley of Hebron.
When Joseph arrived at Shechem and began to roam the countryside looking for his brothers, a man approached him and asked, “What are you looking for?”
“I’m looking for my brothers, who are taking care of their flock,” he answered. “Please tell me, do you know where they are?”
The man replied, “They’ve left here already. I overheard them mention that they were going to Dothan.” So, Joseph took off to catch up with his brothers and found them at Dothan.
As he was still a long distance away, the brothers recognized him by his robe, and by the time he reached them, they had plotted together to kill him. They said to each other, “Here comes this dream expert. Let’s kill him and throw his body into one of these dry wells. We can say that a wild animal ate him. Then we’ll see how his dreams turn out!”
When Reuben heard of this, he tried to save Joseph’s life. “Don’t take his life,” he said. “No bloodshed! Let’s throw him into this pit in the middle of nowhere, but don’t hurt him.” Reuben said these things because he planned to return later to rescue Joseph and take him back to his father.
When Joseph finally caught up with his brothers, they seized him, stripped him of his ornamented robe, his beautiful full-length robe, and threw him into the dry, empty pit.
Afterward, the brothers sat down to eat their food. When they looked up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelite merchants coming from Gilead on their way to Egypt. They had many camels loaded with myrrh, spices, and perfumes. Judah spoke up and said to his brothers, “What will we gain by murdering our brother and covering up his blood? I have an idea! Let’s sell Joseph to these Ishmaelites and not lay a hand on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed. And when the Midianites (also known as Ishmaelites) came by, Joseph’s brothers lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and the merchants took Joseph far away to Egypt.
Later, Reuben went to the pit, and saw that Joseph was gone. He was overcome with grief and tore his clothes. He went to his brothers and said, “The boy is gone! What am I going to do now?”
Then they took Joseph’s colorful robe, killed a goat, and dipped the robe in its blood. They took the blood-stained robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Look it over—doesn’t it belong to your son?”
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