"Our Call to Adventure"

Our scripture today is from Genesis, chapter 37 verses 1-18 from the Common English Bible.

1 Jacob lived in the land of Canaan where his father was an immigrant. 2 This is the account of Jacob's descendants. Joseph was 17 years old and tended the flock with his brothers. While he was helping the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives, Joseph told their father unflattering things about them. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he was born when Jacob was old. Jacob had made for him a long robe. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of his brothers, they hated him and couldn't even talk nicely to him. 5 Joseph had a dream and told it to his brothers, which made them hate him even more. 6 He said to them, "Listen to this dream I had. 7 When we were binding stalks of grain in the field, my stalk got up and stood upright, while your stalks gathered around it and bowed down to my stalk." 8 His brothers said to him, "Will you really be our king and rule over us?" So they hated him even more because of the dreams he told them. 9 Then Joseph had another dream and described it to his brothers: "I've just dreamed again, and this time the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me." 10 When he described it to his father and brothers, his father scolded him and said to him, "What kind of dreams have you dreamed? Am I and your mother and your brothers supposed to come and bow down to the ground in front of you?" 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father took careful note of the matter. 12 Joseph's brothers went to tend their father's flocks near Shechem. 13 Israel said to Joseph, "Aren't your brothers tending the sheep near Shechem? Come, I'll send you to them." And he said, "I'm ready." 14 Jacob said to him, "Go! Find out how your brothers are and how the flock is, and report back to me." So Jacob sent him from the Hebron Valley. When he approached Shechem, 15 a man found him wandering in the field and asked him, "What are you looking for?" 16 Joseph said, "I'm looking for my brothers. Tell me, where are they tending the sheep?" 17 The man said, "They left here. I heard them saying, ‘Let's go to Dothan.'" So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan. 18 They saw Joseph in the distance before he got close to them, and they plotted to kill him.