Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
The One Year Bible TLB (18 page)
Young men, listen to me as you would to your father. Listen, and grow wise, for I speak the truth—don’t turn away.
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For I, too, was once a son, tenderly loved by my mother as an only child, and the companion of my father.
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He told me never to forget his words. “If you follow them,” he said, “you will have a long and happy life.
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Learn to be wise,” he said, “and develop good judgment and common sense! I cannot overemphasize this point.”
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Cling to wisdom—she will protect you. Love her—she will guard you.
January 21The third day Joseph said to them, “I am a God-fearing man and I’m going to give you an opportunity to prove yourselves.
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I’m going to take a chance that you are honorable;
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only one of you shall remain in chains in jail, and the rest of you may go on home with grain for your families;
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but bring your youngest brother back to me. In this way I will know whether you are telling me the truth; and if you are, I will spare you.” To this they agreed.
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Speaking among themselves, they said, “This has all happened because of what we did to Joseph long ago. We saw his terror and anguish and heard his pleadings, but we wouldn’t listen.”
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“Didn’t I tell you not to do it?” Reuben asked. “But you wouldn’t listen. And now we are going to die because we murdered him.”
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Of course they didn’t know that Joseph understood them as he was standing there, for he had been speaking to them through an interpreter.
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Now he left the room and found a place where he could weep. Returning, he selected Simeon from among them and had him bound before their eyes.
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Joseph then ordered his servants to fill the men’s sacks with grain, but also gave secret instructions to put each brother’s payment at the top of his sack! He also gave them provisions for their journey.
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So they loaded up their donkeys with the grain and started for home.
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But when they stopped for the night and one of them opened his sack to get some grain to feed the donkeys, there was his money in the mouth of the sack!
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“Look,” he exclaimed to his brothers, “my money is here in my sack.” They were filled with terror. Trembling, they exclaimed to each other. “What is this that God has done to us?”
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So they came to their father, Jacob, in the land of Canaan and told him all that had happened.
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“The king’s chief assistant spoke very roughly to us,” they told him, “and took us for spies.
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‘No, no,’ we said, ‘we are honest men, not spies.
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We are twelve brothers, sons of one father; one is dead, and the youngest is with our father in the land of Canaan.’
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Then the man told us, ‘This is the way I will find out if you are what you claim to be. Leave one of your brothers here with me and take grain for your families and go on home,
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but bring your youngest brother back to me. Then I shall know whether you are spies or honest men; if you prove to be what you say, then I will give you back your brother and you can come as often as you like to purchase grain.’”
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As they emptied out the sacks, there at the top of each was the money paid for the grain! Terror gripped them, as it did their father.
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Then Jacob exclaimed, “You have bereaved me of my children—Joseph didn’t come back, Simeon is gone, and now you want to take Benjamin too! Everything has been against me.”
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Then Reuben said to his father, “Kill my two sons if I don’t bring Benjamin back to you. I’ll be responsible for him.”
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But Jacob replied, “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother Joseph is dead and he alone is left of his mother’s children. If anything should happen to him, I would die.”
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But there was no relief from the terrible famine throughout the land.
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When the grain they had brought from Egypt was almost gone, their father said to them, “Go again and buy us a little food.”
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But Judah told him, “The man wasn’t fooling one bit when he said, ‘Don’t ever come back again unless your brother is with you.’ We cannot go unless you let Benjamin go with us.”
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“Why did you ever tell him you had another brother?” Israel moaned. “Why did you have to treat me like that?”
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“But the man specifically asked us about our family,” they told him. “He wanted to know whether our father was still living and he asked us if we had another brother, so we told him. How could we know that he was going to say, ‘Bring me your brother’?”
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Judah said to his father, “Send the lad with me and we will be on our way; otherwise we will all die of starvation—and not only we, but you and all our little ones.
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I guarantee his safety. If I don’t bring him back to you, then let me bear the blame forever.
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For we could have gone and returned by this time if you had let him come.”
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So their father Israel finally said to them, “If it can’t be avoided, then at least do this. Load your donkeys with the best products of the land. Take them to the man as gifts—balm, honey, spices, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds.
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Take double money so that you can pay back what was in the mouths of your sacks, as it was probably someone’s mistake,
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and take your brother and go.
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May God Almighty give you mercy before the man, so that he will release Simeon and return Benjamin. And if I must bear the anguish of their deaths, then so be it.”
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So they took the gifts and double money and went to Egypt, and stood before Joseph.
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When Joseph saw that Benjamin was with them, he said to the manager of his household, “These men will eat with me this noon. Take them home and prepare a big feast.”
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So the man did as he was told and took them to Joseph’s palace.
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They were badly frightened when they saw where they were being taken.
“It’s because of the money returned to us in our sacks,” they said. “He wants to pretend we stole it and seize us as slaves, with our donkeys.”
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As they arrived at the entrance to the palace, they went over to Joseph’s household manager,
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and said to him, “O sir, after our first trip to Egypt to buy food,
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as we were returning home, we stopped for the night and opened our sacks, and the money was there that we had paid for the grain. Here it is; we have brought it back again,
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along with additional money to buy more grain. We have no idea how the money got into our sacks.”
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“Don’t worry about it,” the household manager told them; “your God, even the God of your fathers, must have put it there, for we collected your money all right.”
Then he released Simeon and brought him out to them.
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They were then conducted into the palace and given water to refresh their feet; and their donkeys were fed.
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Then they got their presents ready for Joseph’s arrival at noon, for they were told that they would be eating there.
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When Joseph came home they gave him their presents, bowing low before him.
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He asked how they had been getting along. “And how is your father—the old man you spoke about? Is he still alive?”
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“Yes,” they replied. “He is alive and well.” Then again they bowed before him.
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Looking at his brother Benjamin,
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he asked, “Is this your youngest brother, the one you told me about? How are you, my son? God be gracious to you.”
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Then Joseph made a hasty exit, for he was overcome with love for his brother and had to go out and cry. Going into his bedroom, he wept there.
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Then he washed his face and came out, keeping himself under control. “Let’s eat,” he said.
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Joseph ate by himself, his brothers were served at a separate table, and the Egyptians at still another; for Egyptians despise Hebrews and never eat with them.
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He told each of them where to sit, and seated them in the order of their ages, from the oldest to the youngest, much to their amazement!
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Their food was served to them from his own table. He gave the largest serving to Benjamin—five times as much as to any of the others! They had a wonderful time bantering back and forth, and the wine flowed freely!
“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by a fisherman—he casts a net into the water and gathers in fish of every kind, valuable and worthless. When the net is full, he drags it up onto the beach and sits down and sorts out the edible ones into crates and throws the others away.
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That is the way it will be at the end of the world—the angels will come and separate the wicked people from the godly,
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casting the wicked into the fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
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Do you understand?”
“Yes,” they said, “we do.”
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Then he added,
“Those experts in Jewish law who are now my disciples have double treasures—from the Old Testament as well as from the New!”
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When Jesus had finished giving these illustrations, he returned to his hometown, Nazareth in Galilee,
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and taught there in the synagogue and astonished everyone with his wisdom and his miracles.
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“How is this possible?” the people exclaimed. “He’s just a carpenter’s son, and we know Mary his mother and his brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas.
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And his sisters—they all live here. How can he be so great?”
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And they became angry with him!
Then Jesus told them,
“A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own country, and among his own people!”
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And so he did only a few great miracles there, because of their unbelief.
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When King Herod
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heard about Jesus,
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he said to his men, “This must be John the Baptist, come back to life again. That is why he can do these miracles.”
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For Herod had arrested John and chained him in prison at the demand of
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his wife Herodias, his brother Philip’s ex-wife,
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because John had told him it was wrong for him to marry her.
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He would have killed John but was afraid of a riot, for all the people believed John was a prophet.
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But at a birthday party for Herod, Herodias’s daughter performed a dance that greatly pleased him,
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so he vowed to give her anything she wanted.
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Consequently, at her mother’s urging, the girl asked for John the Baptist’s head on a tray.
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The king was grieved, but because of his oath, and because he didn’t want to back down in front of his guests, he issued the necessary orders.
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So John was beheaded in the prison,
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and his head was brought on a tray and given to the girl, who took it to her mother.
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Then John’s disciples came for his body and buried it, and came to tell Jesus what had happened.
He reached down from heaven and took me and drew me out of my great trials. He rescued me from deep waters.
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He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me—I who was helpless in their hands.
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On the day when I was weakest, they attacked. But the Lord held me steady.
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He led me to a place of safety, for he delights in me.
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The Lord rewarded me for doing right and being pure.
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For I have followed his commands and have not sinned by turning back from following him.
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I kept close watch on all his laws; I did not refuse a single one.
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I did my best to keep them all, holding myself back from doing wrong.
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And so the Lord has paid me with his blessings, for I have done what is right, and I am pure of heart. This he knows, for he watches my every step.
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Lord, how merciful you are to those who are merciful. And you do not punish those who run from evil.
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You give blessings to the pure but pain to those who leave your paths.
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You deliver the humble but condemn the proud and haughty ones.
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You have turned on my light! The Lord my God has made my darkness turn to light.
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Now in your strength I can scale any wall, attack any troop.
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What a God he is! How perfect in every way! All his promises prove true. He is a shield for everyone who hides behind him.
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For who is God except our Lord? Who but he is as a rock?
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He fills me with strength and protects me wherever I go.
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He gives me the surefootedness of a mountain goat upon the crags. He leads me safely along the top of the cliffs.
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He prepares me for battle and gives me strength to draw an iron bow!
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