Genesis 47:24-26

Living Bible

²⁴ And when you harvest it, a fifth of everything you get belongs to Pharaoh. Keep four parts for yourselves to be used for next year’s seed, and as food for yourselves and for your households and little ones.”

²⁵ “You have saved our lives,” they said. “We will gladly be the serfs of Pharaoh.”

²⁶ So Joseph made it a law throughout the land of Egypt—and it is still the law—that Pharaoh should have as his tax 20 percent of all the crops except those produced on the land owned by the temples.