1When Joseph saw that his father had died, he threw himself on him and kissed him and cried loudly.

2Then he said to his servants, “Get sweet-smelling oil and powder and put them on my father's body.” They got them and put them on Jacob's body.

3They did the same every day and the Egyptians kept on being sad about him all the time. At the end of forty days the servants finished, but the Egyptians went on being sad for another month.

4When the time for crying was finished, Joseph said to the king's officers, “Please take this message to the king for me and tell him,

5‘Before my father died he said to me, I am going to die soon. Take my body to Canaan and bury me in my father's cave that is there already. Keep my word and don't forget. So please let me go and take my father to the cave, and then I will come back again.’”

6They took Joseph's message to the king, and the king answered, “Take your father to the cave as he told you.”

7So Joseph took his father's body to the cave in Canaan. All the king's officers and all the leading men of Egypt went with him.

8Joseph's two sons and their wives and children and Joseph's brothers and their families went too. All the bigger children went and only the little ones stayed in Goshen, with the sheep, goats and cattle.

9Some men rode on horses and some went in carriages pulled by horses. A big crowd of people all went with him to Canaan.

10They went a long way until they reached a place called Atad that was east of the Jordan River. The people there were working to get the wheat seeds off the stems for their food. Joseph and the people who were with him stopped there and cried loudly for a long time. It was part of their ceremony and they stayed there seven days.

11When the Canaanite people saw Joseph and the others crying at Atad, they said, “Those Egyptians are holding a big death ceremony.” They called the place Abel Mizraim, because that name means “the Egyptians cried.”

12Then Joseph and the people who were with him left that place and went on. They crossed the Jordan River and travelled on in Canaan until they reached Machpelah. There at Machpelah Jacob's sons did everything their father had told them while he was still alive.

13They put his body in the cave near Mamre. First of all the cave had belonged to Ephron the Hittite. Long ago Abraham had bought Ephron's land and the cave that was in it so that they could bury the bodies of his family in it when they died.

14After Joseph had buried his father there, he went back to Egypt with his brothers and with all the people who had gone with him.

About Joseph speaking kindly to his brothers

15After their father had died, Joseph's brothers said, “Maybe Joseph still hates us. Maybe he has decided to do something bad to us, because of what we did to him first. What shall we do?”

16So they sent a message to Joseph and said, “Before our father died,

17he told us to ask you to forgive us for the wrong we did to you. We are the servants of our father's God. So please forgive us now.” When Joseph heard that he cried.

18Then the brothers came themselves to Joseph and bowed down to him. “We are your workers,” they said.

19But Joseph said to them, “Don't be afraid. I am not like God.

20Long ago you planned evil against me, but God changed that evil into good, so that he could save many people. Look, they are alive today because of what happened long ago.

21Don't be afraid, because I will look after you and your children.” So with those kind words Joseph encouraged his brothers and they stopped worrying.

About Joseph dying

22Joseph kept on living in Egypt with all his family until he was an old man, 110 years old.

23While he was still alive he saw Ephraim's children and grandchildren. He also saw the children of his grandson Machir. Machir's father was Manasseh, Joseph's older son.

24Before he died, Joseph spoke to his brothers. He said, “I am going to die, but God will look after you. He will take you away from here to the place he told Abraham about before. He promised that place to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob.”

25Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I want you to promise me today that when God takes you to that country you will take my body with you.” And they promised Joseph that they would do it.

26So Joseph died there in Egypt. He had lived 110 years. His family put sweet-smelling oil and powder on his body and put it in a special box.