Jacob had twelve sons, but Joseph was his favorite. Joseph had been born when Jacob was already old, and he was the son of Rachel, the wife Jacob loved most. And so Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons.

To show that special love, Jacob had a tunic made for Joseph: a long tunic with long sleeves and many colors. It was a beautiful tunic, unlike anything the other sons had; a tunic for a prince, not for a shepherd.

When Joseph's brothers saw that tunic, they were filled with envy. They worked hard in the fields, tending the sheep, while Joseph received gifts from their father. The envy grew in their hearts like a weed.

Joseph's brothers came to dislike him so much that they could no longer speak to him in peace. Every time they saw that colorful tunic, they burned with anger.

Then something happened that made everything worse. Joseph began to have dreams: very special dreams, which God was showing him about the future. One day, Joseph told his brothers:

"Listen to the dream I had. We were in the field, binding sheaves of grain. Suddenly, my sheaf rose and stood upright, and your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down before mine."

His brothers were furious.

"So you intend to reign over us?" they said angrily. "You want to be our master?"

And they hated him all the more, because of his dreams and his words. But Joseph had another dream, and he told it to his father and his brothers as well:

This time, even Jacob scolded him:

"What kind of dream is that? Shall I, your mother, and your brothers really come and bow down to the ground before you?"

His brothers envied him. But his father kept all those words in his heart, wondering what they might mean.

One day, Joseph's brothers went to pasture their father's sheep near Shechem. Jacob called Joseph and said:

"Your brothers are with the sheep near Shechem. Go and visit them, and see how they are doing."

Joseph obeyed his father. He put on his colorful tunic and went to look for his brothers, walking a long way until he found them at Dothan.

When the brothers saw Joseph in the distance, before he even came near, they began to plot against him. They said to one another:

"Here comes the dreamer. Let us kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns. We will say a wild beast devoured him. Then we shall see what becomes of his dreams."

But Reuben, the eldest brother, heard this and tried to save him.

"Let us not take his life," said Reuben. "Shed no blood. Throw Joseph into this cistern here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him."

Reuben wanted to rescue Joseph from their hands and return him to their father. He was planning to pull him out of the cistern later, when the others were not looking.

When Joseph reached his brothers, they seized him. They tore off his long-sleeved tunic, that beautiful colorful tunic they envied so much. Then they took him and threw him into an empty cistern, without a drop of water in it. Joseph fell to the dark bottom of the pit and cried out for help, but his brothers did not care.

After throwing Joseph into the cistern, the brothers sat down to eat, as if nothing had happened. Their hearts were so hardened by envy that they felt no pity for their brother suffering at the bottom of the pit.

While they ate, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm, and myrrh, which they were carrying down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers:

"What will we gain by killing our brother and hiding his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, without laying a hand on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh."

The brothers agreed. When the Midianite merchants passed by, they pulled Joseph out of the cistern and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And the Ishmaelites took Joseph to Egypt.

When Reuben returned to the cistern to pull Joseph out, he found that he was no longer there. He tore his clothes in anguish, went back to his brothers, and said:

"The boy is gone. And I, where shall I go now?"

But the other brothers had already set their terrible plan in motion. They took Joseph's tunic, killed a young goat, and dipped the tunic in its blood. Then they sent the tunic to their father with this message: we found this; see whether it is your son's tunic or not.

Jacob recognized the tunic at once.

"It is my son's tunic!" he cried. "A wild beast has devoured him. Joseph has been torn to pieces."

Jacob tore his clothes, dressed himself in mourning, and wept for his son for many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said he would go down weeping to his son, to the place of the dead.

And so Joseph's father wept for him. The brothers had to live with the lie they had created, watching their father's grief every day.

Meanwhile, Joseph was on his way to Egypt, bound together with other slaves. He was alone, frightened, far from home. Everything he knew — his father, his home, his own land — was falling away behind him.

But Joseph did not know that God had a plan. The dreams he had dreamed were not just dreams: they were God's promises about the future. And God was with Joseph, even in that dark and difficult hour.

In Egypt, the Midianites sold Joseph to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard. Joseph became a slave in the house of a powerful man, in a strange land, speaking a language he barely knew.

But this would not be the end of Joseph's story. It was only the beginning of something far greater than he could imagine. God's dreams for Joseph would still come true, in a way no one expected.