Quotes About Hope

When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were distraught.

So he asked the officials of Pharaoh who were in custody with him in his masterís house, “Why are your faces so downcast today?”

“We both had dreams,” they replied, “but there is no one to interpret them.” Then Joseph said to them, “Donít interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”

So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream: “In my dream there was a vine before me,

Joseph replied, “This is the interpretation: The three branches are three days.

Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore your position. You will put Pharaohís cup in his hand, just as you did when you were his cupbearer.

But when it goes well for you, please remember me and show me kindness by mentioning me to Pharaoh, that he might bring me out of this prison.

For I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing for which they should have put me in this dungeon.”

When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: There were three baskets of white bread on my head.

The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot all about him.

Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, saying, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my fatherís household.”

And the second son he named Ephraim, saying, “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

“Look,” he added, “I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us, so that we may live and not die.”

Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my sons. Joseph is gone and Simeon is no more. Now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is going against me!”

Now the famine was still severe in the land.

And Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me, and we will go at once, so that we may live and not die—neither we, nor you, nor our children.

May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man, that he may release your other brother along with Benjamin. As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.”

When Joseph looked up and saw his brother Benjamin, his own motherís son, he asked, “Is this your youngest brother, the one you told me about?” Then he declared, “May God be gracious to you, my son.”

And we answered, ëWe have an elderly father and a younger brother, the child of his old age. The boyís brother is dead. He is the only one of his motherís sons left, and his father loves him.í

Then our father said, ëGo back and buy us some food.í

When one of them was gone, I said: “Surely he has been torn to pieces.” And I have not seen him since.

Now if you also take this one from me and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.í

So if the boy is not with us when I return to your servant, and if my father, whose life is wrapped up in the boyís life,

sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. Then your servants will have brought the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow.