Dual Panel1Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him.
2Then Joseph told his morticians to embalm the body.
3The embalming process took forty days, and there was a period of national mourning for seventy days.
4When the period of mourning was over, Joseph approached Pharaoh’s advisers and asked them to speak to Pharaoh on his behalf.
5He told them, "Tell Pharaoh that my father made me swear an oath. He said to me, ‘I am about to die; take my body back to the land of Canaan, and bury me in our family’s burial cave.’ Now I need to go and bury my father. After his burial is complete, I will return without delay."
6Pharaoh agreed to Joseph’s request. "Go and bury your father, as you promised," he said.
7So Joseph went, with a great number of Pharaoh’s counselors and advisers––all the senior officers of Egypt.
8Joseph also took his brothers and the entire household of Jacob. But they left their little children and flocks and herds in the land of Goshen.
9So a great number of chariots, cavalry, and people accompanied Joseph.
10When they arrived at the threshing floor of Atad, near the Jordan River, they held a very great and solemn funeral, with a seven–day period of mourning for Joseph’s father.
11The local residents, the Canaanites, renamed the place Abel–mizraim, for they said, "This is a place of very deep mourning for these Egyptians."
12So Jacob’s sons did as he had commanded them.
13They carried his body to the land of Canaan and buried it there in the cave of Machpelah. This is the cave that Abraham had bought for a permanent burial place in the field of Ephron the Hittite, near Mamre.
14Then Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had accompanied him to his father’s funeral.
15But now that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers became afraid. "Now Joseph will pay us back for all the evil we did to him," they said.
16So they sent this message to Joseph: "Before your father died, he instructed us
17to say to you: ‘Forgive your brothers for the great evil they did to you.’ So we, the servants of the God of your father, beg you to forgive us." When Joseph received the message, he broke down and wept.
18Then his brothers came and bowed low before him. "We are your slaves," they said.
19But Joseph told them, "Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, to judge and punish you?
20As far as I am concerned, God turned into good what you meant for evil. He brought me to the high position I have today so I could save the lives of many people.
21No, don’t be afraid. Indeed, I myself will take care of you and your families." And he spoke very kindly to them, reassuring them.
22So Joseph and his brothers and their families continued to live in Egypt. Joseph was 110 years old when he died.
23He lived to see three generations of descendants of his son Ephraim and the children of Manasseh’s son Makir, who were treated as if they were his own.
24"Soon I will die," Joseph told his brothers, "but God will surely come for you, to lead you out of this land of Egypt. He will bring you back to the land he vowed to give to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
25Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath, and he said, "When God comes to lead us back to Canaan, you must take my body back with you."
26So Joseph died at the age of 110. They embalmed him, and his body was placed in a coffin in Egypt.