Joseph, eleventh son of Jacob, beloved of Rachel, was about to die. He called his sons and brethren together and spoke.
"My brethren and my children, hearken to Joseph the beloved of Israel. I have seen in my life envy and death, yet I went not astray, but persevered in the truth of the Lord."
He laid it out like a psalm of survival: "These my brethren hated me, but the Lord loved me. They wished to slay me, but the God of my fathers guarded me. They let me down into a pit, and the Most High brought me up again. I was sold into slavery, and the Lord of all made me free. I was taken into captivity, and His strong hand rescued me. I was beset with hunger, and the Lord Himself nourished me. I was alone, and God comforted me. I was sick, and the Lord visited me. I was in prison, and my God showed favor to me. In bonds, and He released me. Slandered, and He pleaded my cause. Envied by my fellow-slaves, and He exalted me."
Then he told the full story of the Egyptian woman.
The chief captain of Pharaoh, Pentephris, entrusted Joseph with his house. But the captain's wife, a Memphian woman, began her campaign. She urged Joseph to transgress with her. The God of Israel delivered him from the burning flame. She threatened him with death. She summoned him for punishment, then called him back. She offered to make him lord of everything she owned.
Joseph remembered the words of his father, went into his chamber, wept, and prayed to the Lord. He fasted for seven years. To the Egyptians, he appeared to be living delicately, "for those who fast for God's sake receive beauty of face." When his master was away, Joseph drank no wine and for three days at a time took no food, giving it instead to the poor and sick (Genesis 39:7-12).
The woman came to him at night, pretending to visit. She embraced him as a son, then tried to draw him into sin. He declared the words of the Most High to her, hoping she might repent. She tried flattery, praising his chastity before her husband while scheming in private. She offered to abandon her idols if he would lie with her. She threatened to poison her own husband and take Joseph as her spouse. Joseph rent his garments: "Woman, reverence God, and do not this evil deed!"
She sent food mingled with enchantments. Joseph saw a vision of a terrible figure holding a sword within the dish. He wept and refused to eat. When she confronted him, he told her: "The God of my father has revealed your wickedness by His angel." To prove the enchantment was powerless against those who worship God with chastity, he prayed and ate the poisoned food before her eyes, unharmed. She fell at his feet weeping and promised to stop.
But she did not stop. She feigned illness, groaning and sighing. She threatened to hang herself or throw herself off a cliff. Joseph, seeing the spirit of Beliar troubling her, prayed to the Lord and counseled her to think of her children and reputation.
Finally, she seized his garment by force, dragging him. He left it behind and fled naked. She used the garment to accuse him falsely, and her husband had Joseph thrown into prison and scourged (Genesis 39:13-20). Even from prison, she sent messages: "Consent to fulfill my desire, and I will release you from your bonds." Not even in thought did Joseph incline to her.
"Ye see, my children, how great things patience works, and prayer with fasting," Joseph said. "If you follow after chastity and purity with patience and prayer, with fasting in humility of heart, the Lord will dwell among you, because He loves chastity."
He told of his humility. When the Ishmaelites asked if he was a slave, Joseph said yes, to protect his brothers from shame. When the eldest merchant said, "You are not a slave, for even your appearance makes it clear," Joseph insisted he was. When the Memphian woman arranged for Pentephris to buy him, and Joseph was beaten to make him confess his true identity, he maintained his story. Even when the Ishmaelites returned and revealed he was the son of a mighty man in Canaan, and Joseph's bowels dissolved and his heart melted with the desire to weep, he restrained himself to protect his brothers.
"Do you also love one another," he said, "and with long-suffering hide one another's faults. For God delights in the unity of brethren." When his brothers came to Egypt, Joseph returned their money, did not upbraid them, and comforted them. After Jacob's death, he loved them more abundantly. Their children were his children. Their suffering was his suffering. Their sickness was his infirmity. "I exalted not myself among them in arrogance because of my worldly glory," Joseph said, "but I was among them as one of the least."
He recounted a vision: twelve harts feeding, nine scattered, then three preserved, then all scattered, then restored as lambs crying to the Lord. God brought them into a flourishing, well-watered place, out of darkness into light. They became twelve sheep, then many flocks. Twelve bulls suckled one cow that produced a sea of milk. The horns of the fourth bull went up to heaven and became a wall for the flocks.
"Observe the commandments of the Lord," Joseph concluded, "and honor Levi and Judah, for from them shall arise one who saves Israel. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, which shall not pass away." He commanded them to carry his bones to Hebron and to bury Asenath near Rachel.
Joseph stretched out his feet and died at a good old age. All Israel mourned for him, and all Egypt with a great mourning. When the children of Israel went out of Egypt, they took his bones and buried him in Hebron with his fathers. The years of his life were a hundred and ten (Genesis 50:26).