My Very Best Bible Stories

I

saac grew up and had a family.

Then his son Jacob had 12 sons.

“And I’m the best of them,” boasted Joseph. “That’s why our father bought me this coat.”

Joseph’s brothers were jealous. One day, they turned on him. They ripped up his coat and sold him as a slave. In faraway Egypt, no one thought Joseph was important at all.

God took care of Joseph and made him wise. When the king had a puzzling dream, the Joseph who had become a nobody was asked to explain it. Then the king gave him an important job, storing the harvest crops.

Years later, when the harvests failed, there was food stored in Egypt. Joseph’s brothers came begging.

Joseph forgave them. Jacob’s whole family came to live in Egypt.

J

acob’s children’s children were many. As the years went by, the family grew and became a nation: Israel.

The new king of Egypt was afraid of them. “Make them all slaves,” he ordered his soldiers. “And throw the baby boys in the river.”

One mother made a floating cradle. She hid her baby son in the reeds by the river.

When the princess of Egypt came to bathe, she found him.

“I shall take care of him,” she said, “and I shall call him ‘Moses’.”