Genesis 42:1-13 ▼

1 Now Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, so Jacob said to his sons, |Why do you look at one another?|

2 He said, |Look, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us from there, so that we may live and not die.|

3 So Joseph’s ten brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt.

4 But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he said, | Some harm might happen to him.|

5 So the sons of Israel went to buy grain among the other travelers, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.

6 Now Joseph was the ruler over the country, and it was he who sold to all the people of the land. Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves down to him with their faces to the ground.

7 Joseph saw his brothers, and he recognized them, but he acted like he did not know them, and spoke harshly with them. And he said to them, |Where do you come from?| And they said, |From the land of Canaan to buy food.|

8 So Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.

9 Then Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed about them, and said to them, |You are spies. You have come to look for the vulnerabilities of the country.|

10 But they said to him, |No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food.

11 We are all sons of one man. We are honest men. Your servants are not spies.|

12 But he said to them, |No, but you have come to look for the vulnerabilities of the country.|

13 But they said, |We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and look, the youngest is now with our father, and one is no more.|