July 8, 2027

18Judah then stepped up to him and said: “I beg you, my lord, let your servant appeal to my lord, and do not become angry with your servant, for you are the equal of Pharaoh. 19My lord asked his servants, ‘Have you a father, or another brother?’ 20So we said to my lord, ‘We have an aged father, and a younger brother, the child of his old age. This one’s full brother is dead, and since he is the only one by his mother who is left, his father is devoted to him.’ 21Then you told your servants, ‘Bring him down to me that I might see him.’ 23But you told your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see me again.’ 24When we returned to your servant my father, we reported to him the words of my lord. 25“Later, our father said, ‘Go back and buy some food for us.’ 26So we reminded him, ‘We cannot go down there; only if our youngest brother is with us can we go, for we may not see the man if our youngest brother is not with us.’ 27Then your servant my father said to us, ‘As you know, my wife bore me two sons. 28One of them, however, has gone away from me, and I said, “He must have been torn to pieces by wild beasts!” I have not seen him since. 29If you take this one away from me too, and a disaster befalls him, you will send my white head down to Sheol in grief.’ 1Joseph could no longer restrain himself in the presence of all his attendants, so he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw from me!” So no one attended him when he made himself known to his brothers. 2But his sobs were so loud that the Egyptians heard him, and so the news reached Pharaoh’s house. 3“I am Joseph,” he said to his brothers. “Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could give him no answer, so dumbfounded were they at him. 4“Come closer to me,” Joseph told his brothers. When they had done so, he said: “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5But now do not be distressed, and do not be angry with yourselves for having sold me here. It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you.

16IV - Then he called down a famine on the land, destroyed the grain that sustained them. 17He had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, sold as a slave. 18They shackled his feet with chains; collared his neck in iron, 19Till his prediction came to pass, and the word of the LORD proved him true. 20The king sent and released him; the ruler of peoples set him free. 21He made him lord over his household, ruler over all his possessions,

15“This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” The Call of the First Disciples.

7As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give. 9Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; 10no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick. The laborer deserves his keep. 11Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave. 12As you enter a house, wish it peace. 13If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you. 14Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words—go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. 15Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.