16. "Then bring your livestock," said Joseph. "You say your money is gone. So I'll trade you food for your livestock."
17. They brought their livestock to Joseph. He traded them food for their animals. They gave him their horses, sheep, goats, cattle and donkeys. He brought the people through that year by trading them food for all of their livestock.
18. When that year was over, they came to him the next year. They said, "We can't hide the truth from you. Our money is gone. Our livestock belongs to you. We don't have anything left to give you except our bodies and our land.
19. "Why should we die right in front of your eyes? Why should our land be destroyed as well? Trade us food for ourselves and our land. Then we and our land will belong to Pharaoh. Give us some seeds so we can live and not die. We don't want the land to become a desert."
20. So Joseph bought all of the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. All of the people of Egypt sold their fields. They did that because there wasn't enough food anywhere. In that way, the land became Pharaoh's.
21. Joseph made the people slaves from one end of Egypt to the other.