Today is the 21st day of January. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is wonderful to be here with you today as we gather around the Global Campfire 21 days.

So when we finish our reading today we will have completed three full weeks in the Bible and it will be three full weeks in the New Year that we are getting ourselves acclimated to.

So wonderful. Wonderful. We are well underway.

I am looking back at the last three weeks and saying to myself the Bible is speaking a lot.

There is a lot that I have been able to consider and hopefully you too. There is a lot going on. The Bible is so rich and full of things for us to examine that so deeply bring up the questions that we need to ask in our own lives.

So it is great to be here with you today as we celebrate three weeks in the Bible together.

And we will do what we do every day which is to take the next step forward together and picking up where we left off brings us back into the book of Genesis.

We are navigating through the story of Joseph who is now second in command in all of Egypt. A terrible famine is in the land.

The land of Canaan has been affected. Joseph's family is suffering because of the famine.

His brothers, the ones who trafficked him, have come to Egypt to find grain so that they can live and they have ended up before Joseph, their brother.

He knows who they are, they don't know who he is and they have bowed down before him and he has accused them of being spies.

And so they are a little unsettled to say the least. He is demanding that one of the brothers go back to Canaan and get his little brother, Benjamin.

And he is going to hold the other ones in prison until Benjamin gets back to prove that they are not spies.

And this is where we pick up the story.

Genesis chapter 42 verse 18 through 43 verse 34.

On the third day Joseph said to them, I fear God, do this and you will live. If you are honest, let one of you be confined to the guard house while the rest of you go and take grain to relieve the hunger of your households.

Bring your youngest brother to me so that your words can be confirmed, then you won't die. And they consented to this.

And they said to each other, obviously we are being punished for what we did to our brother.

We saw his deep distress when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this trouble has come to us.

But Rubin replied, didn't I tell you not to harm the boy? But you wouldn't listen. Now we must account for his blood.

They did not realize that Joseph understood them since there was an interpreter between them. He turned away from them and wept.

When he turned back and spoke to them, he took Simeon from them and had him bound before their eyes. Joseph then gave orders to fill their containers with grain. Return each man's silver to his sack and give them provisions for their journey. This order was carried out.

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