1 Joseph went and hugged his father, weeping over him and kissing him. 2 Then Joseph instructed the physicians who worked for him to embalm his father's body. So the physicians embalmed Israel. 3 This took a full 40 days, the normal time for the process, and the Egyptians mourned for him for 70 days.

4 Once the time of mourning was over, Joseph said to Pharaoh's officials, “If you'd be so kind, please speak to Pharaoh on my behalf, and explain to him that 5 my father made me swear an oath, telling me, ‘You must bury me in the tomb I've prepared for myself in Canaan. Please allow me to go and bury my father and then I'll return.’ ”

6 Pharaoh replied, “Go and bury your father as he made you swear to do.”

7 Joseph went to bury his father, and all Pharaoh's officials went with him—all Pharaoh's senior advisors and all the leaders of Egypt— 8 as well as Joseph's family, his brothers, and his father's family. They only left the small children and their flocks and herds back in Goshen. 9 They were accompanied by chariots and horsemen—a really large procession.

10 When they got to the threshing floor of Atad, on the other side of the Jordan, they wept loudly in sorrow. Joseph held a seven-day ceremony of mourning for his father there. 11 The Canaanites who lived there watched the ceremony of mourning at the threshing floor of Atad. They said, “This is a very sad time of mourning for the Egyptians,” so they renamed the place Abel-mizraim,*“Abel-mizraim”: meaning “mourning of the Egyptians.” which is on the other side of the Jordan.

12 Jacob's sons did what he had instructed them to do. 13 They carried his body to Canaan and buried him in the cave at Machpelah in the field near Mamre, which Abraham had bought from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site.

14 After they had buried their father, Joseph and his brothers returned to Egypt along with all those who had gone with them. 15 However, now that their father was dead, Joseph's brothers became worried, saying, “Maybe Joseph is holding a grudge against us, and he'll pay us back for all the bad things we did to him.”

16 So they sent a message to Joseph to tell him, “Before your father died, he gave this order, 17 ‘This is what you are to tell Joseph: Forgive your brothers their sins, the bad things they did to you, treating you in such a nasty way.’ Now please forgive us our sins, we who are servants of the God of your father.” When Joseph received their message, he cried.

18 Then his brothers themselves came and fell down before Joseph and said, “We are your slaves!”

19 “You don't need to be afraid!” he told them. “I don't stand in the place of God, do I? 20 While you planned bad things for me, God planned it for good so that in the end many lives could be saved.†See 45:5, 45:7. 21 So don't worry. I'll go on taking care of you and your children.” Speaking kindly like this he calmed them down.

22 Joseph remained in Egypt, together with his father's whole family. He lived to be 110, 23 and saw three generations of his son Ephraim, and the sons of Makir, Manasseh's son, were placed in his lap when they were born.

24 “I'm going to die soon,” Joseph told his brothers, “but God will be with you, and he will lead you out of this country to the land that he swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

25 Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath, saying, “When God comes to be with you, you must take my bones with you when you leave.”‡“When you leave”: supplied for clarity. 26 Joseph died when he was 110. After his body was embalmed, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.