17 Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “In my dream I was standing by the Nile River.
18 Seven cows came up out of the river and stood there eating the grass. They were healthy, good-looking cows.
19 Then I saw seven more cows come up out of the river after them, but these cows were thin and looked sick. They were the worst cows I had ever seen anywhere in Egypt!
20 The thin, sick cows ate the first healthy cows,
21 but they still looked thin and sick. You couldn’t even tell they had eaten the healthy cows. They looked as thin and sick as they did in the beginning. Then I woke up.
22 “In my next dream I saw seven heads of grain growing on one plant. They were healthy and full of grain.
23 And then seven more heads of grain grew after them, but they were thin and scorched by the hot wind.