Genesis 37:27Plain English VersionSo let’s not kill him. Let’s sell him to this Midian mob. You know, Joseph is our brother, and we are all in the same family, so we shouldn’t hurt him.” The rest of Joseph’s brothers agreed to do what Judah said. See the chapter |
Then Reuben said to his brothers, “Don’t murder Joseph. Just chuck him into one of those big holes in the ground, here in the desert. Don’t hurt him yourselves, just leave him there to die.” You see, Reuben wanted to save Joseph from his brothers. He thought, “Later on, I will pull Joseph out of that hole, and I will take him home to our father.”
Then Joseph’s brothers talked to each other in their own language. They said, “You know, a long time ago, we made bad trouble for our brother Joseph. We chucked him into a big hole in the ground, and then we sold him to some men from the Midian tribe. At that time, we saw that he was really frightened, and he asked us strongly to be good to him, but we didn’t listen. That’s the reason why we’ve got this bad trouble now. God is punishing us for those things that we did to Joseph.”
Then Joseph said, “You know, a long time ago, you mob made a plan to hurt me. But God had a plan too. His plan was good, and it was more powerful than your plan. You did bad things, but God used them to make good things happen. Yes, he brought me here to Egypt country, so that I helped lots of people stay alive when the food plants didn’t grow. And those people are still alive today.
But you didn’t take notice of God’s word. You did something that is really wrong. God says it is really bad. You took Uriah’s wife, and you killed him. Yes, you sent Uriah into the middle of the fight. You knew that the Ammon mob would kill him. So really, you murdered him to get his wife for yourself.
That law is there to stop those people that just want to sleep with anybody, and do with them what married people do together. It is there to stop men that want to sleep with other men, as if they are women. It is there to stop people that grab other people to make them prisoners and force them to work for no pay. It is there to stop those people that trick other people by lying to them. That law is there to stop all those sorts of bad things that people do if they don’t listen to God’s word.