Genesis 47:18-26

18When that year was ended, they came to him the next year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord [the fact] that our money is spent; my lord also has our herds of livestock; there is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our lands.

19Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we and our land will be servants to Pharaoh. And give us seed [to plant], that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.”

20So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for every Egyptian sold his field because the famine was severe upon them. So the land became Pharaoh’s.

21And as for the people, he relocated them [temporarily] to cities from one end of Egypt’s border to the other.

22Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh, and they lived on the amount which Pharaoh gave them, so they did not sell their land.

23Then Joseph said to the people, “Look, today I have bought you and your land for Pharaoh; now, here is seed for you, and you shall plant the land.

24At harvest time [when you reap the increase] you shall give one-fifth of it to Pharaoh, and four-fifths will be your own to use for seed for the field and as food for you and those of your households and for your little ones.”

25And they said, “You have saved our lives! Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s servants.”

26And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt—valid to this day—that Pharaoh should have the fifth part [of the crops]; only the land of the priests did not become Pharaoh’s.