50

And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept on him, and kissed him. ² And Joseph commanded his servants the embalmers to embalm his father; and the embalmers embalmed Israel. ³ And they fulfilled forty days for him, for so are the days of embalming numbered; and Egypt mourned for him seventy days. ⁴ And when the days of mourning were past, Joseph spoke to the princes of Pharao, saying, If I have found favour in your sight, speak concerning me in the ears of Pharao, saying, ⁵ My father adjured me, saying, In the sepulchre which I dug for myself in the land of Chanaan,

69

there thou shalt bury me; now then I will go up and bury my father, and return again. ⁶ And Pharao said to Joseph, Go up, bury thy father, as he constrained thee to swear. ⁷ So Joseph went up to bury his father; and all the servants of Pharao went up with him, and the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt. ⁸ And all the household of Joseph, and his brethren, and all the house of his father, and his kindred; and they left behind the sheep and the oxen in the land of Gesem. ⁹ And there went up with him also chariots and horsemen; and there was a very great company. ¹⁰ And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan; and they bewailed him with a great and very sore lamentation; and he made a mourning for his father seven days. ¹¹ And the inhabitants of the land of Chanaan saw the mourning at the floor of Atad, and said, This is a great mourning to the Egyptians; therefore he called its name, The mourning of Egypt, which is beyond Jordan. ¹² And thus his sons did to him. ¹³ So his sons carried him up into the land of Chanaan, and buried him in the double cave, which cave Abraam bought for possession of a burying place, of Ephrom the Chettite, before Mambre. ¹⁴ And Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brethren, and those that had gone up with him to bury his father.

¹⁵ And when the brethren of Joseph saw that their father was dead, they said, Let us take heed, lest at any time Joseph remember evil against us, and recompense to us all the evils which we have done against him. ¹⁶ And they came to Joseph, and said, Thy father adjured us before his death, saying, ¹⁷ Thus say ye to Joseph, Forgive them their injustice and their sin, forasmuch as they have done thee evil; and now ¹ pardon the injustice of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept while they spoke to him. ¹⁸ And they came to him and said, We, these persons, are thy servants. ¹⁹ And Joseph said to them, Fear not, for I am God's. ²⁰ Ye took counsel against me for evil, but God took counsel for me for good, that the matter might be as it is to-day, and much people might be fed. ²¹ And he said to them, Fear not, I will maintain you, and your families; and he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. ²² And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his brethren, and all the family of his father; and Joseph lived a hundred and ten years. ²³ And Joseph saw the children of Ephraim to the third generation; and the sons of Machir the son of Manasse were borne on the ² sides of Joseph. ²⁴ And Joseph spoke to his brethren, saying, I die, and God will surely visit you, and will bring you out of this land to the land concerning which God sware to our fathers, Abraam, Isaac, and Jacob. ²⁵ And Joseph adjured the sons of Israel, saying, At the visitation with which God shall visit you, then ye shall carry up my bones hence with you. ²⁶ And Joseph died, aged an hundred and ten years; and ³ they prepared his corpse, and put him in a coffin in Egypt.

70