Genesis 43:1-18 ▼

1 And the famine [is] severe in the land;

2 and it comes to pass, when they have finished eating the grain which they brought from Egypt, that their father says to them, “Return, buy for us a little food.”

3 And Judah speaks to him, saying, “The man protesting protested to us, saying, You do not see my face without your brother [being] with you;

4 if you are sending our brother with us, we go down, and buy for you food,

5 and if you are not sending—we do not go down, for the man said to us, You do not see my face without your brother [being] with you.”

6 And Israel says, “Why did you do evil to me, by declaring to the man that you had yet a brother?”

7 And they say, “The man asked diligently concerning us, and concerning our family, saying, Is your father yet alive? Have you a brother? And we declare to him according to the tenor of these things; do we certainly know that he will say, Bring down your brother?”

8 And Judah says to his father Israel, “Send the youth with me, and we arise, and go, and live, and do not die, both we, and you, and our infants.

9 I am guarantor [for] him, from my hand you require him; if I have not brought him to you, and set him before you—then I have sinned against you all the days;

10 for if we had not lingered, surely now we had returned these two times.”

11 And their father Israel says to them, “If so, now, do this: take of the praised thing of the land in your vessels, and take down to the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and almonds;

12 and double money take in your hand, even the money which is brought back in the mouth of your bags, you take back in your hand, it may be it [is] an oversight.

13 And take your brother, and rise, return to the man;

14 and God Almighty give to you mercies before the man, so that he has sent to you your other brother and Benjamin; and I, when I am bereaved—I am bereaved.”

15 And the men take this present, double money also they have taken in their hand, and Benjamin; and they rise, and go down to Egypt, and stand before Joseph;

16 and Joseph sees Benjamin with them and says to him who [is] over his house, “Bring the men into the house, and slaughter an animal, and make ready, for the men eat with me at noon.”

17 And the man does as Joseph has said, and the man brings in the men into the house of Joseph,

18 and the men are afraid because they have been brought into the house of Joseph, and they say, “For the matter of the money which was put back in our bags at the commencement are we brought in—to roll himself on us, and to throw himself on us, and to take us for servants—our donkeys also.”