Joseph’s Dreams Anger His Brothers

37:1–11

37 Jacob continued to live in the region of Canaan where his father Isaac had lived for a while as a foreigner. 2 Here is more of the record about Jacob and his family: One day his seventeen-year-old son Joseph was taking care of the family’s flocks of sheep and goats. Joseph was helping his brothers who were the sons of his father’s servant wives Bilhah and Zilpah, and he told their father about the bad things they were doing.

3 Now Israel, that is, Jacob, loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he was born to him when he was old. So he made a special robe for Joseph that had many colors. 4 When Joseph’s brothers realized that their father loved Joseph more than the rest of them, they hated him so much that they would not talk to him in a friendly manner.

5 One night Joseph had a dream, and he told his brothers about it. That made them hate him even more than before. 6 This is what he told them, “Please listen to this dream that I had: 7 In it I saw us working out in a field cutting and tying bundles of grain stalks. Then suddenly the bundle that I had made stood up straight. Then I saw that the bundles you had made stood around my bundle and bowed down to my bundle to show respect.” 8 His brothers responded to him, “Do you really expect to be our king? You will never rule over us!” So they hated him even more intensely than they did before because of what he had said to them about his dreams.

9 Then Joseph had another dream that he also told to his brothers. He said, “Listen, I just had another dream, and in it I saw that the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowed down to the ground before me to show respect.” 10 Later Joseph told the same dream to both his father and his brothers, but his father scolded him by saying, “That is a strange dream that you had! Do you really expect your mother and me and your brothers to bow down before you?” 11 So Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him, but his father continued to think about what it all could mean.