When the words of her older son Esau were relayed to Rebekah, she sent for her younger son Jacob and told him, “Look, your brother Esau is consoling himself by plotting to kill you.
Now Joseph’s brothers saw him in the distance, and before he arrived, they plotted to kill him. “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to one another. “Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. We can say that a vicious animal has devoured him. Then we shall see what becomes of his dreams!”
Then they said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw his anguish when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.” And Reuben responded, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you would not listen. Now we must account for his blood!”
Though evil is sweet in his mouth and he conceals it under his tongue, though he cannot bear to let it go and keeps it in his mouth, yet in his stomach his food sours into the venom of cobras within him.
For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; they are deprived of slumber until they make someone fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.