Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors Coloring Pages

The story of Joseph and his coat

Joseph was the favourite son of his father Jacob, who gave him a special coat — “a coat of many colours” in the King James Bible, and an ornate robe with long sleeves in other translations. Joseph dreamed that his brothers’ sheaves of wheat bowed down to his, and that the sun, the moon and eleven stars bowed down to him. His older brothers grew jealous, threw him into a dry pit and sold him to traders on their way to Egypt.

In Egypt Joseph worked as a servant in Potiphar’s house and was later put in prison, where he explained the dreams of Pharaoh’s baker and cupbearer. When Pharaoh dreamed of seven fat cows and seven thin cows, Joseph explained that seven good harvests would be followed by seven years of famine. Pharaoh made him governor of Egypt, and Joseph stored up grain in the good years. When the famine came, his brothers travelled to Egypt to buy food and bowed down before him without knowing who he was. Joseph told them who he was and forgave them, and his old father Jacob came to Egypt to see him again. You can read it in Genesis chapters 37 to 50. The story carries on in Exodus, where Joseph’s family grows into a whole people and Moses leads them out of Egypt — see the Moses coloring pages.

Coat of many colors coloring pages

The coat is on every page where Joseph wears it, and three pages are all about it: young Joseph holding out his arms to show it off, the coat laid out flat with every band a different pattern, and Jacob giving it to Joseph outside the family tent. The paper doll page is a craft — colour Joseph and his coat, cut both out along the dashed lines, and fold the tabs over his shoulders to dress him.

Joseph’s story in order

The middle pages follow the story: Joseph asleep and dreaming of the sun, moon and stars, the dream of the bowing sheaves, his brothers frowning at the coat, Joseph in the well, the journey to Egypt with the traders’ camels, the courtyard of Potiphar’s house, the prison with the baker and the cupbearer, Pharaoh’s puzzling dream, Joseph riding in Pharaoh’s chariot, Joseph forgiving his brothers by a grain storehouse, and Joseph hugging his father Jacob. The story sequence sheet puts six of those moments into picture panels with no words — cut them apart and ask children to put the story back in order.

Saint Joseph, and Mary and Joseph

Saint Joseph is a different Joseph, from the New Testament: the husband of Mary and a carpenter in Nazareth, whose feast day is 19 March. One page shows him teaching the boy Jesus to plane a plank of wood in his workshop, and another shows Mary and Joseph travelling to Bethlehem, with Mary riding a donkey as she is traditionally shown, under a bright star.

Detailed Joseph coloring pages

The five detailed pages suit older children and adults: the story sequence sheet, a coat of many colors mandala of wheat sheaves, woven bands, suns, moons and stars, Joseph directing the grain harvest into tall granaries by the Nile, Saint Joseph the carpenter, and Mary and Joseph on the road to Bethlehem.

Print the whole set at once

The button at the top of this page bundles all twenty into a single download, and every page comes as a PDF in both US Letter and A4 — handy for a Sunday school lesson.

More Bible coloring pages

For more Bible stories see the religious Easter coloring pages and the angel coloring pages, which include the angel Gabriel and the shepherds. For favourite verses to colour, from Genesis 1:1 to Psalm 23, there are the Bible verse coloring pages.