Print this Lesson JOSEPH
Genesis 37:12-36
My name is Joseph and I'm 17 years old. I live with my father Jacob, my mother Rachel and 11 brothers. I've been tending the sheep with my brothers for my father.

I know I'm my father's favorite son because he made me a beautiful coat of many colors. See? I am wearing it right now. Sometimes I think my brothers are jealous of me because of my beautiful coat. I don't mean to be bragging, but when I told my brothers about having a dream about a bundle of wheat that stood straight up and their bundles of wheat bowed down to the one standing up, they became very mad at me.

My brothers said to me, "Do you intend to tell us what to do?" I could see the hate in their eyes because of my dream.

I went to bed that night feeling so bad about my brothers hating me. Then I had another dream. This time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me. When 1 told my father Jacob and my brothers about this dream, my father was not pleased with me and asked me if he, my mother and my brothers would actually come before me and bow down to the ground before me!

Sometime later my brothers were out keeping my father's sheep and my father sent me to them to see if everything was all right with them and then to come back and tell him.

I told my father that I would do that for him. I found them near Dothan. As I looked at them in the distance, I waved, but they didn't wave back. I could see them looking at me and talking. When I got close to them, they said to one another, "Here comes that dreamer!" One of my brothers said, "Let's kill him and throw him in the well and say that a wild animal ate him. Then we'll see what happens with his dreams." I was so scared to hear them saying these mean things about me.

My brother Reuben tried to save me from them. He said, "Let's not kill him, but throw him in the well here in the desert. I think Reuben meant to come back later to rescue me. My brothers took my beautiful coat of many colors off my back and they threw me in the well. Thankfully there was no water in the well. It was damp and scary down there.

I could hear them talking and eating. Then I heard a lot of different voices. It was a caravan of Ishmaelites. My brothers pulled me up out of the well and sold me as a slave for 20 shekels of silver and took me with them to Egypt.

I learned later that my brother Reuben returned to the well to save me. He was so upset that I was gone that he tore his clothes. When Reuben asked his brothers what had happened to me, they told him they had sold me as a slave and that they were rid of me for good.

I also found out that they took my coat of many colors and dipped it in goat's blood. Then they took it back to my father and said, "We found this, look at it to see if it is Joseph's coat." My father, Jacob, knew it was my coat of many colors. He said some wild animal must have eaten me and I was surely torn to pieces.

My father tore his clothes and cried for many days. Everyone came to comfort him, but he wouldn't talk to anyone.

The Ishmaelites sold me to Potiphar, one of the king's officials. I was so afraid, but in my heart I knew that my God was in control of my life and that he would be with me. My most exciting days were yet to come.

Memory Verse: ? Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find. What did you learn from this lesson? ? Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Do you know? Answer on back page ? What did Joseph's brothers do to him?