על יוסף ג׳On Joseph 3
א׳
1[12] This journey proved to be the source of great evil and great good, both exceeding anything that could have been expected. For Joseph, in obedience to his father’s commands, went to his brethren, but they, when they saw him coming afar off, talked to each other, and their language was very sinister. They did not even deign to speak of him by his name, but called him the dream-driveller and the vision-monger and similar terms. Their anger reached such a pitch that they plotted by a majority, though not unanimously, to murder him, and in order to avoid detection they determined to throw his dead body into a very deep pit in the ground. In that region there are many such, made to hold the rain-water.
ב׳
2[13] And they were only deterred from committing that most accursed of deeds, fratricide, by the exhortation of the eldest among them, to which they reluctantly yielded. He urged them to keep their souls clear from the abominable act, and merely to throw him into one of the deep pits, thinking to contrive some means for saving him and hoping when they had gone away to take him up and send him to their father quite unharmed.
ג׳
3[14] When they had agreed to this, Joseph approached and saluted them, but they caught hold of him as though he were an enemy in battle and stripped him of his coat. They then let him down by ropes into the open depths. His coat they dyed red in the blood of a kid, and sent it to his father with the story that wild beasts had made away with him.