Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
The One Year Bible TLB (15 page)
January 18So Jacob settled again in the land of Canaan, where his father had lived.
2
Jacob’s son Joseph was now seventeen years old. His job, along with his half brothers, the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah, was to shepherd his father’s flocks. But Joseph reported to his father some of the bad things they were doing.
3
Now as it happened, Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other children, because Joseph was born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob gave him a special gift—a brightly colored coat.
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4
His brothers of course noticed their father’s partiality, and consequently hated Joseph; they couldn’t say a kind word to him.
5
One night Joseph had a dream and promptly reported the details to his brothers, causing even deeper hatred.
6
“Listen to this,” he proudly announced.
7
“We were out in the field binding sheaves, and my sheaf stood up, and your sheaves all gathered around it and bowed low before it!”
8
“So you want to be our king, do you?” his brothers derided. And they hated him both for the dream and for his cocky attitude.
9
Then he had another dream and told it to his brothers. “Listen to my latest dream,” he boasted. “The sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed low before me!”
10
This time he told his father as well as his brothers; but his father rebuked him. “What is this?” he asked. “Shall I indeed, and your mother and brothers come and bow before you?”
11
His brothers were fit to be tied concerning this affair, but his father gave it quite a bit of thought and wondered what it all meant.
12
One day Joseph’s brothers took their father’s flocks to Shechem to graze them there.
13-14
A few days later Israel called for Joseph, and told him, “Your brothers are over in Shechem grazing the flocks. Go and see how they are getting along, and how it is with the flocks, and bring me word.”
“Very good,” Joseph replied. So he traveled to Shechem from his home at Hebron Valley.
15
A man noticed him wandering in the fields.
“Who are you looking for?” he asked.
16
“For my brothers and their flocks,” Joseph replied. “Have you seen them?”
17
“Yes,” the man told him, “they are no longer here. I heard your brothers say they were going to Dothan.” So Joseph followed them to Dothan and found them there.
18
But when they saw him coming, recognizing him in the distance, they decided to kill him!
19-20
“Here comes that master-dreamer,” they exclaimed. “Come on, let’s kill him and toss him into a well and tell Father that a wild animal has eaten him. Then we’ll see what will become of all his dreams!”
21-22
But Reuben hoped to spare Joseph’s life. “Let’s not kill him,” he said; “we’ll shed no blood—let’s throw him alive into this well here; that way he’ll die without our touching him!” (Reuben was planning to get him out later and return him to his father.)
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So when Joseph got there, they pulled off his brightly colored robe,
24
and threw him into an empty well—there was no water in it.
25
Then they sat down for supper. Suddenly they noticed a string of camels coming towards them in the distance, probably Ishmaelite traders who were taking gum, spices, and herbs from Gilead to Egypt.
26-27
“Look there,” Judah said to the others. “Here come some Ishmaelites. Let’s sell Joseph to them! Why kill him and have a guilty conscience? Let’s not be responsible for his death, for, after all, he is our brother!” And his brothers agreed.
28
So when the traders
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came by, his brothers pulled Joseph out of the well and sold him to them for twenty pieces of silver, and they took him along to Egypt.
29
Some time later, Reuben (who was away when the traders came by)
*
returned to get Joseph out of the well. When Joseph wasn’t there, he ripped at his clothes in anguish and frustration.
30
“The child is gone; and I, where shall I go now?” he wept to his brothers.
31
Then the brothers killed a goat and spattered its blood on Joseph’s coat,
32
and took the coat to their father and asked him to identify it.
“We found this in the field,” they told him. “Is it Joseph’s coat or not?”
33
Their father recognized it at once.
“Yes,” he sobbed, “it is my son’s coat. A wild animal has eaten him. Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces.”
34
Then Israel tore his garments and put on sackcloth and mourned for his son in deepest mourning for many weeks.
35
His family all tried to comfort him, but it was no use.
“I will die in mourning for my son,” he would say, and then break down and cry.
36
Meanwhile, in Egypt, the traders sold Joseph to Potiphar, an officer of the Pharaoh—the king of Egypt. Potiphar was captain of the palace guard, the chief executioner.
38:
1
About this time, Judah left home and moved to Adullam and lived there with a man named Hirah.
2
There he met and married a Canaanite girl—the daughter of Shua.
3-5
They lived at Chezib and had three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. These names were given to them by their mother, except for Er, who was named by his father.
6
When his oldest son, Er, grew up, Judah arranged for him to marry a girl named Tamar.
7
But Er was a wicked man, and so the Lord killed him.
8
Then Judah said to Er’s brother, Onan, “You must marry Tamar, as our law requires of a dead man’s brother; so that her sons from you will be your brother’s heirs.”
9
But Onan was not willing to have a child who would not be counted as his own, and so, although he married her,
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whenever he went in to sleep with her, he spilled the sperm on the bed to prevent her from having a baby which would be his brother’s.
10
So far as the Lord was concerned, it was very wrong of him to deny a child to his deceased brother, so he killed him, too.
11
Then Judah told Tamar, his daughter-in-law, not to marry again at that time, but to return to her childhood home and to her parents, and to remain a widow there until his youngest son, Shelah, was old enough to marry her. (But he didn’t really intend for Shelah to do this, for fear God would kill him, too, just as he had his two brothers.) So Tamar went home to her parents.
12
In the process of time Judah’s wife died. After the time of mourning was over, Judah and his friend Hirah, the Adullamite, went to Timnah to supervise the shearing of his sheep.
13
When someone told Tamar that her father-in-law had left for the sheepshearing at Timnah,
14
and realizing by now that she was not going to be permitted to marry Shelah, though he was fully grown, she laid aside her widow’s clothing and covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and sat beside the road at the entrance to the village of Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah.
15
Judah noticed her as he went by and thought she was a prostitute, since her face was veiled.
16
So he stopped and propositioned her to sleep with him, not realizing of course that she was his own daughter-in-law.
“How much will you pay me?” she asked.
17
“I’ll send you a young goat from my flock,” he promised.
“What pledge will you give me, so that I can be sure you will send it?” she asked.
18
“Well, what do you want?” he inquired.
“Your identification seal and your walking stick,” she replied. So he gave them to her and she let him come and sleep with her; and she became pregnant as a result.
19
Afterwards she resumed wearing her widow’s clothing as usual.
20
Judah asked his friend Hirah the Adullamite to take the young goat back to her, and to pick up the pledges he had given her, but Hirah couldn’t find her!
21
So he asked around of the men of the city, “Where does the prostitute live who was soliciting out beside the road at the entrance of the village?”
“But we’ve never had a public prostitute here,” they replied.
22
So he returned to Judah and told him he couldn’t find her anywhere, and what the men of the place had told him.
23
“Then let her keep them!” Judah exclaimed. “We tried our best. We’d be the laughingstock of the town to go back again.”
24
About three months later word reached Judah that Tamar, his daughter-in-law, was pregnant, obviously as a result of prostitution.
“Bring her out and burn her,” Judah shouted.
25
But as they were taking her out to kill her she sent this message to her father-in-law: “The man who owns this identification seal and walking stick is the father of my child. Do you recognize them?”
26
Judah admitted that they were his and said, “She is more in the right than I am, because I refused to keep my promise to give her to my son Shelah.” But he did not marry her.
27
In due season the time of her delivery arrived and she had twin sons.
28
As they were being born, the midwife tied a scarlet thread around the wrist of the child who appeared first,
29
but he drew back his hand and the other baby was actually the first to be born. “Where did
you
come from!” she exclaimed. And ever after he was called Perez (meaning “Bursting Out”).
30
Then, soon afterwards, the baby with the scarlet thread on his wrist was born, and he was named Zerah.
Then a demon-possessed man—he was both blind and unable to talk—was brought to Jesus, and Jesus healed him so that he could both speak and see.
23
The crowd was amazed. “Maybe Jesus is the Messiah!”
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they exclaimed.
24
But when the Pharisees heard about the miracle, they said, “He can cast out demons because he is Satan,
*
king of devils.”
25
Jesus knew their thoughts and replied,
“A divided kingdom ends in ruin. A city or home divided against itself cannot stand.
26
And if Satan is casting out Satan, he is fighting himself and destroying his own kingdom.
27
And if, as you claim, I am casting out demons by invoking the powers of Satan, then what power do your own people use when they cast them out? Let them answer your accusation!
28
But if I am casting out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has arrived among you.
29
One cannot rob Satan’s kingdom without first binding Satan.
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Only then can his demons be cast out!
30
Anyone who isn’t helping me is harming me.
31-32
“Even blasphemy against me
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or any other sin can be forgiven—all except one: speaking against the Holy Spirit shall never be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come.
33
“A tree is identified by its fruit. A tree from a select variety produces good fruit; poor varieties don’t.
34
You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For a man’s heart determines his speech.
35
A good man’s speech reveals the rich treasures within him. An evil-hearted man is filled with venom, and his speech reveals it.
36
And I tell you this, that you must give account on Judgment Day for every idle word you speak.
37
Your words now reflect your fate then: either you will be justified by them or you will be condemned.”
38
One day some of the Jewish leaders, including some Pharisees, came to Jesus asking him to show them a miracle.
39-40
But Jesus replied,
“Only an evil, faithless nation would ask for further proof; and none will be given except what happened to Jonah the prophet! For as Jonah was in the great fish for three days and three nights, so I, the Messiah,
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shall be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.
41
The men of Nineveh shall arise against this nation at the judgment and condemn you. For when Jonah preached to them, they repented and turned to God from all their evil ways. And now one greater than Jonah is here—and you refuse to believe him.
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42
The queen of Sheba shall rise against this nation in the judgment and condemn it; for she came from a distant land to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and now one greater than Solomon is here—and you refuse to believe him.
43-45
“This evil nation is like a man possessed by a demon. For if the demon leaves, it goes into the deserts
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for a while, seeking rest but finding none. Then it says, ‘I will return to the man I came from.’ So it returns and finds the man’s heart clean but empty! Then the demon finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and all enter the man and live in him. And so he is worse off than before.”