A reading from the book of Genesis. So Joseph went in and told Pharaoh, My father and my brothers, with their flocks and herds and all that they possess, have come from the land of Canaan. They are now in the land of Goshen. And from among his brothers he took five men and presented them to Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to his brothers, What is your occupation? And they said to Pharaoh, Your servants are shepherds, as our fathers were. They said to Pharaoh, We have come to sojourn in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants' flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. And now please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen. Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, Your father and your brothers have come to you. The land of Egypt is before you. Settle your father and your brothers in the best of the land. Let them settle in the land of Goshen, and if you know any able men among them, put them in charge of my livestock. Then Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and stood him before Pharaoh. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and Pharaoh said to Jacob, How many are the days of the years of your life? And Jacob said to Pharaoh, The days of the years of my soul journing are 130 years. Few in evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers, and the days of their soul journing. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from the presence of Pharaoh. Then Joseph settled his father and his brothers, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt in the best of the land, in the land of Ramesses, as Pharaoh had commanded. And Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all his father's household with food, according to the number of their dependents. Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, in exchange for the grain that they bought. And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house, and when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, Give us food, why should we die before your eyes, for our money is gone? And Joseph answered, Give your livestock, and I will give you food in exchange for your livestock if your money is gone. So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds, and the donkeys. He supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year. And when that year was ended, they came to him the following year and said to him, We will not hide from my Lord that our money is all spent. The herds of livestock are my Lord's. There is nothing left in the sight of my Lord but our bodies and our land. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh, and give us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate. So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for all the Egyptians sold their fields because the famine was severe on them. The land became Pharaoh's, as for the people he made servants of them from one end of Egypt to the other. Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had affixed allowance from Pharaoh and lived on the allowance that Pharaoh gave them, therefore they did not sell their land. And Joseph said to the people, Behold I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Now hear a seed for you, and you shall sow the land, and at the harvest you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four fifth shall be your own, as seed for the field and as food for yourselves and your households, and as food for your little ones. And they said, You have saved our lives, may it please my Lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh. So Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt, and it stands to this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth, the land of the priests alone did not become Pharaoh's. Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen, and they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly, and Jacob lived in the land of Egypt 17 years, so the days of Jacob, the years of his life were 147 years, and when the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, If now I have found favor in your sight, put your hand under my thigh and promise to deal kindly and truly with me, do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying place. He answered, I will do as you have said, and he said, Swear by me, and he swore to him, that Israel bowed himself upon the head of his bed. After this Joseph was told, Behold your father is ill, so he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, and it was told to Jacob, Your son Joseph has come to you, then Israel summoned his strength and sat up in bed, and Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and said to me, Behold I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make of you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your offspring after you, for an everlasting possession, and now your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt are mine. Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are, and the children that you fathered after them shall be yours, they shall be called by the name of their brothers and their inheritance, as for me. When I came from Padan to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan on the way when there were still some distance to go to Ephraim, and I buried her there on the way to Ephraim, that is Bethlehem. When Israel saw Joseph's sons he said, Who are these? Joseph said to his father, These are my sons whom God has given me here, and he said, Bring them to me please that I may bless them. Now the eyes of Israel were dim with age, so that he could not see, so Joseph brought them near him, and he kissed them and embraced them, and Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face, and behold, God has let me see your offspring also. Then Joseph removed them from his knees, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth, and Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand towards Israel's left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand towards Israel's right hand, and brought them near him. And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh crossing his hands, for Manasseh was the firstborn, and he blessed Joseph and said, The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, blessed the boys, and in them let my name be carried on, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him, and he took his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head, and Joseph said to his father, Not this way, my father, since this one is the firstborn, put your right hand on his head. But his father refused and said, I know, my son, I know, he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great. Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations. So he blessed them that day, saying, By you Israel will pronounce blessings, saying, God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh. Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh. Then Israel said to Joseph, Behold, I am about to die, but God will be with you, and will bring you again to the land of your fathers. Moreover, I have given to you rather than to your brothers, one mountain slope that I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow. A reading from the book of Psalms. A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me and pass the righteousness for his namesake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. A reading of the Gospel according to Mark. And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven. Now some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts. Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus question within themselves, said to them, Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, Rise, take up your bed and walk. But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I say to you, Rise, pick up your bed and go home. And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all so that they were all amazed and glorified God saying, We never saw anything like this. He went out again beside the sea and all the crowd was coming to him and he was teaching them. And as he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, Follow me. And he rose and followed him. And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Now, John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting and people came and said to them, Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of unstrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made, and no one puts new wine into old wine skins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins, but new wine is for fresh wine skins. One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain, and the Pharisees were saying to him, Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? And he said to them, Have you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him? How he entered the house of God, and the time of a Biothar the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which it does not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him? And he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, so the Son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath.
