One Year Pray for the Persecuted Bible - Flipbook - Page 74
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January 18
BELIEVERS WILL AWAKE TODAY in Eritrean prison cells. Inmates will
endure Communist indoctrination in Chinese prisons. But our persecuted Christian family members are never alone. The Lord is with
them—and through our prayers, we are too. • LORD, DAVID WAS
RIGHT —you are a place of refuge, a sanctuary of safety. When everything else is shaken, you alone are steady. When all else is stripped
away, you remain. And when persecution comes, you show the way
to joy—even in suffering. Amen.
GENESIS 37:1–38:30
So Jacob settled again in the land of Canaan,
where his father had lived as a foreigner.
2 This is the account of Jacob and his fam
ily. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he
often tended his father’s flocks. He worked
for his half brothers, the sons of his father’s
wives Bilhah and Zilpah. But Joseph reported
to his father some of the bad things his brothers were doing.
3 Jacob* loved Joseph more than any of his
other children because Joseph had been born
to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a
special gift made for Joseph—a beautiful
robe.* 4 But his brothers hated Joseph because
their father loved him more than the rest of
them. They couldn’t say a kind word to him.
5 One night Joseph had a dream, and when
he told his brothers about it, they hated him
more than ever. 6 “Listen to this dream,” he
said. 7 “We were out in the field, tying up
bundles of grain. Suddenly my bundle stood
up, and your bundles all gathered around and
bowed low before mine!”
8 His brothers responded, “So you think you
will be our king, do you? Do you actually think
you will reign over us?” And they hated him all
the more because of his dreams and the way
he talked about them.
9 Soon Joseph had another dream, and again
he told his brothers about it. “Listen, I have
had another dream,” he said. “The sun, moon,
and eleven stars bowed low before me!”
10 This time he told the dream to his father as
well as to his brothers, but his father scolded
him. “What kind of dream is that?” he asked.
“Will your mother and I and your brothers
actually come and bow to the ground before
you?” 11 But while his brothers were jealous of
Joseph, his father wondered what the dreams
meant.
12 Soon after this, Jo
seph’s brothers went
to pasture their father’s flocks at Shechem.
13 When they had been gone for some time,
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Jacob said to Joseph, “Your brothers are pasturing the sheep at Shechem. Get ready, and I
will send you to them.”
“I’m ready to go,” Joseph replied.
14 “Go and see how your brothers and the
flocks are getting along,” Jacob said. “Then
come back and bring me a report.” So Jacob
sent him on his way, and Joseph traveled to
Shechem from their home in the valley of
Hebron.
15 When he arrived there, a man from the
area noticed him wandering around the
countryside. “What are you looking for?” he
asked.
16 “I’m looking for my brothers,” Joseph replied. “Do you know where they are pasturing
their sheep?”
17 “Yes,” the man told him. “They have moved
on from here, but I heard them say, ‘Let’s go on
to Dothan.’” So Joseph followed his brothers to
Dothan and found them there.
18 When Joseph’s brothers saw him coming,
they recognized him in the distance. As he approached, they made plans to kill him. 19 “Here
comes the dreamer!” they said. 20 “Come on,
let’s kill him and throw him into one of these
cisterns. We can tell our father, ‘A wild animal
has eaten him.’ Then we’ll see what becomes
of his dreams!”
21 But when Reuben heard of their scheme,
he came to Joseph’s rescue. “Let’s not kill him,”
he said. 22 “Why should we shed any blood?
Let’s just throw him into this empty cistern
here in the wilderness. Then he’ll die without
our laying a hand on him.” Reuben was secretly planning to rescue Joseph and return
him to his father.
23 So when Jo
seph arrived, his brothers
ripped off the beautiful robe he was wearing.
24 Then they grabbed him and threw him into
the cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there
was no water in it. 25 Then, just as they were
sitting down to eat, they looked up and saw
a caravan of camels in the distance coming
