'Us' in the Bible

And God said, "Let us make humankind in our image and according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of heaven, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every moving thing that moves upon the earth."

And Yahweh God said, "Look--the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil. {What if} he stretches out his hand and takes also from the tree of life and eats, and lives forever?"

Then Cain said to his brother Abel, ["Let us go out into the field."] And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

And he called his name Noah, saying, "This one {shall relieve us} from our work, and from the hard labor of our hands, from the ground which Yahweh had cursed.

And they said {to each other}, "Come, let us make bricks and {burn them thoroughly}." And they had brick for stone and they had tar for mortar.

And they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top [reaches to] the heavens. And let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand {each other's language}."

And they called to Lot and said to him, "Where [are] the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may know them."

For we are [about to] destroy this place, because their cry has become great before Yahweh. Yahweh sent us to destroy it."

And the firstborn [daughter] said to the younger one, "Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to come in to us according to the manner of all the land.

Come, let us give our father wine to drink and let us lie with him that {we may secure descendants through our father}."

And it happened [that], the next day the firstborn said to the younger one, "Look, I laid with my father last night. Let us give him wine to drink also tonight, then go and lie with him that {we may secure descendants through our father}."

And Abimelech called for Abraham and said to him, "What have you done to us? And how have I sinned against you that you brought upon me and upon my kingdom a great sin? You have done things to me that should not be done."

"Hear us, my lord, you [are] a mighty prince in our midst. Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial sites. None of us {will withhold his burial site} from you [for] burying your dead."

and said, "Please tell me, whose daughter [are] you? Is there a place [at] the house of your father for us to spend the night?"

And her brother and her mother said, "Let the girl remain with us ten days [or so]; after [that] she may go."

And they said, "Let us call the girl and ask {her opinion}."

And she said to the servant, "Who [is] this man walking around in the field to meet us?" And the servant said, "That [is] my master." And she took her veil and covered herself.

And Abimelech said, "What [is] this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have slept with your wife! Then you would have brought guilt upon us!"

And Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go [away] from us, for you have become much too powerful for us."

Then he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. And he called its name Rehoboth, and said, "Now Yahweh has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land."

And they said, "We see clearly that Yahweh has been with you, so we thought let there be an oath between us--between us and you--and let us {make} a covenant with you

that you may not do us harm just as we have not touched you, but have only done good to you and sent you away in peace. You [are] now blessed by Yahweh."

Then Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, "[Is there] yet a portion for us, and an inheritance in the house of our father?

Are we not regarded [as] foreigners by him, because he has sold us and completely consumed our money?

For all the wealth that God has taken away from our father, it belongs to us and to our sons. So now, all that God has said to you, do."

For you have searched all my possessions and what did you find among all the possessions of my household? Set it before my kinsmen and your kinsmen that they may decide between the two of us!

So now, come, let us {make} a covenant, you and I, and let it be a witness between me and you."

If you mistreat my daughters, and if you take wives besides my daughters, [when] there is no man with us, see--God [is] a witness between me and you."

May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father judge between us." Then Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac.

Then you must say, 'To your servant, to Jacob. It [is] a gift sent to my lord, to Esau. Now behold, he [is] also [coming] after us.'"

And moreover, you shall say, 'Look, your servant Jacob [is] behind us.'" For he thought, "{Let me appease him} with the gift going before me, and afterward I will see his face. Perhaps he will {show me favor}."

Then he said, "Let us journey and go [on], and I will go ahead of you."

Make marriages with us. Give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves.

You shall dwell with us and the land shall be before you; settle and trade in it, and acquire [property] in it."

And they said to them, "We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to a man who [is] uncircumcised, for that [is] a disgrace for us.

Only on this [condition] will we give consent to you; if you will become like us--every male among you to be circumcised.

But if you will not listen to us, to be circumcised, then we will take our daughters and we will go."

"These men [are] at peace with us. Let them dwell in the land and let them trade in it. Now, behold, the land is {broad enough for them}. Let us take their daughters as wives, and let us give our daughters to them.

Only on this [condition] will they give consent to us, to live with us [and] to become one family--when every male among us [is] circumcised as they are circumcised.

Will not their livestock and their property and all their animals [be] ours? Only let us give consent to them so they will live among us."

Then let us make ready and let us go up to Bethel, so that I can make an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my trouble, and who has been with me on the way that I have gone."

Then his brothers said to him, "Will you really rule over us?" And {they hated him even more} on account of his dream and because of his words.

And the man said, "They have moved on from here, for I heard [them] saying, 'Let us go to Dothan.'" Then Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan.

Now then, come, let us kill him and throw him in one of the pits. Then we will say a wild animal devoured him. Then we will see what his dreams become."

Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but our hand shall not be against him, for he [is] our brother, our own flesh." And his brothers agreed.

she called to the men of her house and said to them, "Look! He brought a Hebrew man to us to mock us! He came to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice.

Then she spoke to him according to these words, saying, "The Hebrew slave that you brought to us came to me to make fun of me.

And there with us [was] a young man, a Hebrew servant of the chief of the guard, and we told him [the dream], and he interpreted our dreams for us, each according to his dream he interpreted.

And it happened just as he interpreted to us, so it was. He restored me to my office, and him he hanged."

Then he said, "Look, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy grain for us there that we may live and not die."

Then each said to his brother, "Surely we [are] guilty on account of our brother when we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded for mercy to us and we would not listen. Therefore this trouble has come to us."

And he said to his brothers, "My money was returned and moreover, behold, [it is] in my sack!" Then {their hearts failed them} and each of them trembled [and] said, "What [is] this God has done to us?"

"The man, the lord of the land, spoke harshly to us and treated us as [if we were] spying out the land.

Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, 'By this I will know that you [are] honest. Leave one [brother] with me, and take [food for] the famine in your households and go.

And it happened [that] as they finished eating the grain which they had brought from Egypt their father said to them, "Return and buy a little food for us."

Then Judah said to him, "The man solemnly admonished us, saying, 'You shall not see my face unless your brother [is] with you.'

{If you will send} our brother with us, we will go down and buy food for you,

but {if you will not send} [him], we will not go down, for the man said to us, 'You shall not see my face unless your brother [is] with you.'"

And they said, "The man asked explicitly about us and about our family, saying, 'Is your father still alive? Do you have a brother?' And we answered him according to these words. How could we know that he would say, 'Bring down your brother'?"

Then Judah said to his father Israel, "Send the boy with me, and let us arise and go, so that we will live and not die--you, we, and our children.

And the men were afraid when they were brought into the house of Joseph. And they said "We were brought [here] on account of the money that was returned to our sacks the first time, that he might attack us and fall upon us to take us as slaves with our donkeys."

And when our father said, 'Buy a little food for us,'

then we said, 'We cannot go down. If our youngest brother [is] with us, then we shall go down. For we will not be able to see the face of the man unless our youngest brother [is] with us.'

Then your servant, my father, said to us, 'You yourselves know that my wife bore two sons to me.

So now, when I come to your servant, my father, and the boy is not with us--now his life is bound up with his life--

And when the money was spent in the land of Egypt and from the land of Canaan, all of Egypt came to Joseph, saying, "Give us food! Why should we die before you? For the money is used up."

Why should we die in front of you, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, then we and our land will be servants to Pharaoh. Then give us seed and we shall live and not die, and the land will not become desolate."

And when the brothers of Joseph saw that their father [was] dead, they said, "It may be [that] Joseph will hold a grudge against us and pay us back dearly for all the evil that we did to him."

So they sent [word] to Joseph saying, "Your father commanded [us] before his death, saying,

And he said to his people, "Look, the people of the {Israelites} [are] greater and more numerous than us.

Come, we must deal shrewdly with them, lest they become many, and when war happens, they also will join our enemies and will fight against us and go up from the land."

And he said, "Who {appointed you as a commander} and a judge over us? [Are] you intending to kill me like you killed the Egyptian?" And Moses was afraid, and he said, "Surely the matter has become known."

And they said, "An Egyptian man delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and he even drew [water] for us and watered the flock."

And they will listen to your voice, and you will go, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and you will say to him, 'Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews has met with us, and now let us please go [on] a journey of three days into the desert, and let us sacrifice to Yahweh our God.'

And they said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go [on] a three-day journey into the desert, and let us sacrifice to Yahweh our God, lest he strike us with plague or with sword."

But the quota of the bricks that they [were] making {before} {you must require of them}. You must not reduce from it, because they [are] lazy. Therefore they [are] crying out, saying, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God.'

Straw [is] not being given to your servants, but [they are] saying to us, 'Make bricks!' and, look, your servants [are] being beaten, but it is the fault of your people."

And he said, "You [are] lazy, lazy! Therefore you [are] saying, 'Let us go; let us sacrifice to Yahweh.'

And they said to them, "May Yahweh look upon you and judge because you have caused our fragrance to stink in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servants [so as] to put a sword into their hand to kill us."

And Moses said, "To do so [is] not right, because we will sacrifice to Yahweh our God a thing detestable to the Egyptians. Look, [if] we sacrifice before their eyes the thing detestable to the Egyptians, will they not stone us?

We will go a journey of three days into the desert, and we will sacrifice to Yahweh our God according to what he says to us."

And Moses said, "Look, I [am] going out from you, and I will pray to Yahweh so that the flies depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people tomorrow. Only let not Pharaoh again deceive [us] by not releasing the people to sacrifice to Yahweh."

And the servants of Pharaoh said to him, "Until when will this be a snare for us? Release the men so that they may serve Yahweh their God. Do you not yet know that Egypt is destroyed?"

And Moses said, "With our young and with our old we will go; with our sons and with our daughters, with our sheep and goats and with our cattle we will go because [it is] the feast of Yahweh for us."

our livestock must also go with us. Not a hoof can be left because we must take from them to serve Yahweh our God. And we will not know [with] what we are to serve Yahweh until we come there."

And [the] Egyptians urged the people [in order] to hurry their release from the land, because they said, "All of us [will] die!"

And when your son asks you {in the future}, saying, 'What [is] this?' you will say to him, 'With strength of hand Yahweh brought us out from Egypt, from a house of slaves.

And when Pharaoh was stubborn to release us, Yahweh killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from firstborn human to firstborn domestic animal. Therefore I [am] sacrificing to Yahweh every first offspring of a womb, the males, and every firstborn of my sons I redeem.'

And it will be as a sign on your hand and as symbolic ornaments between your eyes that with strength of hand Yahweh brought us out from Egypt."

And it was told to the king of Egypt that the people fled, and the heart of Pharaoh was changed and [that of] his servants toward the people, and they said, "What [is] this we have done, that we have released Israel from serving us!"

And they said to Moses, "Because there are no graves in Egypt? Is that why you have taken us to die in the desert? What [is] this you have done to us by bringing us out from Egypt!

Isn't this the word we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, 'Leave us alone [so that] we can serve Egypt!' because serving Egypt is better for us than our dying in the desert."

And the {Israelites} said to them, "{If only we had died} by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread {until we were full}, because you have brought us out to this desert to kill all of this assembly with hunger."

and [in the] morning, you will see the glory of Yahweh, {for he hears} your grumblings against Yahweh, and what [are] we that you grumble against us?"

And Moses said, "When in the evening Yahweh gives you meat to eat and bread in the morning {to fill up on}, {for he hears} your grumblings that you grumble against him--and what [are] we? Your grumblings [are] not against us but against Yahweh."

And the people quarreled with Moses, and they said, "Give us water so that we can drink." And Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test Yahweh?"

And the people thirsted for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, "Why {ever} did you bring us up from Egypt to kill me and my sons and my cattle with thirst?"

And Moses said to Joshua, "Choose men for us, and go out, fight against Amalek tomorrow. I [will be] standing on the top of the hill, and the staff of God [will be] in my hand."

And Moses said to Yahweh, "The people are not able to go up to Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, saying, 'Set limits [around] the mountain and consecrate it.'"