'Us' in the Bible

Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth."

And the Lord God said, "Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."

He named him Noah, saying, "This one will bring us comfort from our labor and from the painful toil of our hands because of the ground that the Lord has cursed."

They shouted to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!"

"Out of our way!" they cried, and "This man came to live here as a foreigner, and now he dares to judge us! We'll do more harm to you than to them!" They kept pressing in on Lot until they were close enough to break down the door.

because we are about to destroy it. The outcry against this place is so great before the Lord that he has sent us to destroy it."

Later the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man anywhere nearby to have sexual relations with us, according to the way of all the world.

Abimelech summoned Abraham and said to him, "What have you done to us? What sin did I commit against you that would cause you to bring such great guilt on me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done!"

"Listen, sir, you are a mighty prince among us! You may bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will refuse you his tomb to prevent you from burying your dead."

"Whose daughter are you?" he asked. "Tell me, is there room in your father's house for us to spend the night?"

When food was served, he said, "I will not eat until I have said what I want to say." "Tell us," Laban said.

But Rebekah's brother and her mother replied, "Let the girl stay with us a few more days, perhaps ten. Then she can go."

and asked Abraham's servant, "Who is that man walking in the field toward us?" "That is my master," the servant replied. So she took her veil and covered herself.

Then Abimelech exclaimed, "What in the world have you done to us? One of the men might easily have had sexual relations with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us!"

Then Abimelech said to Isaac, "Leave us and go elsewhere, for you have become much more powerful than we are."

the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, "The water belongs to us!" So Isaac named the well Esek because they argued with him about it.

Then he moved away from there and dug another well. They did not quarrel over it, so Isaac named it Rehoboth, saying, "For now the Lord has made room for us, and we will prosper in the land."

They replied, "We could plainly see that the Lord is with you. So we decided there should be a pact between us -- between us and you. Allow us to make a treaty with you

so that you will not do us any harm, just as we have not harmed you, but have always treated you well before sending you away in peace. Now you are blessed by the Lord."

Hasn't he treated us like foreigners? He not only sold us, but completely wasted the money paid for us!

Surely all the wealth that God snatched away from our father belongs to us and to our children. So now do everything God has told you."

When you searched through all my goods, did you find anything that belonged to you? Set it here before my relatives and yours, and let them settle the dispute between the two of us!

It was also called Mizpah because he said, "May the Lord watch between us when we are out of sight of one another.

If you mistreat my daughters or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one else is with us, realize that God is witness to your actions."

May the God of Abraham and the god of Nahor, the gods of their father, judge between us." Jacob took an oath by the God whom his father Isaac feared.

then you must say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They have been sent as a gift to my lord Esau. In fact Jacob himself is behind us.'"

You must also say, 'In fact your servant Jacob is behind us.'" Jacob thought, "I will first appease him by sending a gift ahead of me. After that I will meet him. Perhaps he will accept me."

Intermarry with us. Let us marry your daughters, and take our daughters as wives for yourselves.

You may live among us, and the land will be open to you. Live in it, travel freely in it, and acquire property in it."

They said to them, "We cannot give our sister to a man who is not circumcised, for it would be a disgrace to us.

We will give you our consent on this one condition: You must become like us by circumcising all your males.

"These men are at peace with us. So let them live in the land and travel freely in it, for the land is wide enough for them. We will take their daughters for wives, and we will give them our daughters to marry.

Only on this one condition will these men consent to live with us and become one people: They demand that every male among us be circumcised just as they are circumcised.

If we do so, won't their livestock, their property, and all their animals become ours? So let's consent to their demand, so they will live among us."

Let us go up at once to Bethel. Then I will make an altar there to God, who responded to me in my time of distress and has been with me wherever I went."

Then his brothers asked him, "Do you really think you will rule over us or have dominion over us?" They hated him even more because of his dream and because of what he said.

she called for her household servants and said to them, "See, my husband brought in a Hebrew man to us to humiliate us. He tried to have sex with me, but I screamed loudly.

This is what she said to him: "That Hebrew slave you brought to us tried to humiliate me,

We each had a dream one night; each of us had a dream with its own meaning.

Now a young man, a Hebrew, a servant of the captain of the guards, was with us there. We told him our dreams, and he interpreted the meaning of each of our respective dreams for us.

It happened just as he had said to us -- Pharaoh restored me to my office, but he impaled the baker."

He then said, "Look, I hear that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy grain for us so that we may live and not die."

They said to one other, "Surely we're being punished because of our brother, because we saw how distressed he was when he cried to us for mercy, but we refused to listen. That is why this distress has come on us!"

He said to his brothers, "My money was returned! Here it is in my sack!" They were dismayed; they turned trembling one to another and said, "What in the world has God done to us?"

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

"Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, 'This is how I will find out if you are honest men. Leave one of your brothers with me, and take grain for your hungry households and go.

When they finished eating the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, "Return, buy us a little more food."

But Judah said to him, "The man solemnly warned us, 'You will not see my face unless your brother is with you.'

If you send our brother with us, we'll go down and buy food for you.

But if you will not send him, we won't go down there because the man said to us, 'You will not see my face unless your brother is with you.'"

They replied, "The man questioned us thoroughly about ourselves and our family, saying, 'Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?' So we answered him in this way. How could we possibly know that he would say, 'Bring your brother down'?"

But the men were afraid when they were brought to Joseph's house. They said, "We are being brought in because of the money that was returned in our sacks last time. He wants to capture us, make us slaves, and take our donkeys!"

But when we came to the place where we spent the night, we opened our sacks and each of us found his money -- the full amount -- in the mouth of his sack. So we have returned it.

We have brought additional money with us to buy food. We do not know who put the money in our sacks!"

If one of us has it, he will die, and the rest of us will become my lord's slaves!"

"Then our father said, 'Go back and buy us a little food.'

But we replied, 'We cannot go down there. If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go, for we won't be permitted to see the man's face if our youngest brother is not with us.'

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

"So now, when I return to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us -- his very life is bound up in his son's life.

When he sees the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hair of your servant our father in sorrow to the grave.

When the money from the lands of Egypt and Canaan was used up, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, "Give us food! Why should we die before your very eyes because our money has run out?"

Why should we die before your very eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we, with our land, will become Pharaoh's slaves. Give us seed that we may live and not die. Then the land will not become desolate."

They replied, "You have saved our lives! You are showing us favor, and we will be Pharaoh's slaves."

When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph bears a grudge and wants to repay us in full for all the harm we did to him?"

Come, let's deal wisely with them. Otherwise they will continue to multiply, and if a war breaks out, they will ally themselves with our enemies and fight against us and leave the country."

The man replied, "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Are you planning to kill me like you killed that Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid, thinking, "Surely what I did has become known."

They said, "An Egyptian man rescued us from the shepherds, and he actually drew water for us and watered the flock!"

He said to his daughters, "So where is he? Why in the world did you leave the man? Call him, so that he may eat a meal with us."

"The elders will listen to you, and then you and the elders of Israel must go to the king of Egypt and tell him, 'The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. So now, let us go three days' journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.'

And they said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Let us go a three-day journey into the desert so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, so that he does not strike us with plague or the sword."

But you must require of them the same quota of bricks that they were making before. Do not reduce it, for they are slackers. That is why they are crying, 'Let us go sacrifice to our God.'

But Pharaoh replied, "You are slackers! Slackers! That is why you are saying, 'Let us go sacrifice to the Lord.'

and they said to them, "May the Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the opinion of Pharaoh and his servants, so that you have given them an excuse to kill us!"

But Moses said, "That would not be the right thing to do, for the sacrifices we make to the Lord our God would be an abomination to the Egyptians. If we make sacrifices that are an abomination to the Egyptians right before their eyes, will they not stone us?

We must go on a three-day journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God, just as he is telling us."

Pharaoh's servants said to him, "How long will this man be a menace to us? Release the people so that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not know that Egypt is destroyed?"

But Moses said, "Will you also provide us with sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may present them to the Lord our God?

Our livestock must also go with us! Not a hoof is to be left behind! For we must take these animals to serve the Lord our God. Until we arrive there, we do not know what we must use to serve the Lord."

In the future, when your son asks you 'What is this?' you are to tell him, 'With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the land of slavery.

When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to release us, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of people to the firstborn of animals. That is why I am sacrificing to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb, but all my firstborn sons I redeem.'

It will be for a sign on your hand and for frontlets on your forehead, for with a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt."

When it was reported to the king of Egypt that the people had fled, the heart of Pharaoh and his servants was turned against the people, and the king and his servants said, "What in the world have we done? For we have released the people of Israel from serving us!"

and they said to Moses, "Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the desert? What in the world have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?

Isn't this what we told you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone so that we can serve the Egyptians, because it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!'"

The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this desert to kill this whole assembly with hunger!"

and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your murmurings against the Lord. As for us, what are we, that you should murmur against us?"

Moses said, "You will know this when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and bread in the morning to satisfy you, because the Lord has heard your murmurings that you are murmuring against him. As for us, what are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord."

So the people contended with Moses, and they said, "Give us water to drink!" Moses said to them, "Why do you contend with me? Why do you test the Lord?"

But the people were very thirsty there for water, and they murmured against Moses and said, "Why in the world did you bring us up out of Egypt -- to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?"

He called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contending of the Israelites and because of their testing the Lord, saying, "Is the Lord among us or not?"

Moses said to the Lord, "The people are not able to come up to Mount Sinai, because you solemnly warned us, 'Set boundaries for the mountain and set it apart.'"

They said to Moses, "You speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak with us, lest we die."

He told the elders, "Wait for us in this place until we return to you. Here are Aaron and Hur with you. Whoever has any matters of dispute can approach them."

When the people saw that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, "Get up, make us gods that will go before us. As for this fellow Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him!"

They said to me, 'Make us gods that will go before us, for as for this fellow Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.'

And Moses said to him, "If your presence does not go with us, do not take us up from here.

For how will it be known then that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not by your going with us, so that we will be distinguished, I and your people, from all the people who are on the face of the earth?"

and said, "If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, let my Lord go among us, for we are a stiff-necked people; pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance."

and told Moses, "The people are bringing much more than is needed for the completion of the work which the Lord commanded us to do!"

Moses said to Hobab son of Reuel, the Midianite, Moses' father-in-law, "We are journeying to the place about which the Lord said, 'I will give it to you.' Come with us and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good things for Israel."