Genesis 44:29-34 ▼

29 Now if you also take this one from me and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.’

30 So if the boy is not with us when I return to your servant, and if my father, whose life is wrapped up in the boy’s life,

31 sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. Then your servants will have brought the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow.

32 Indeed, your servant guaranteed the boy’s safety to my father, saying, ‘If I do not return him to you, I will bear the guilt before you, my father, all my life.’

33 Now please let your servant stay here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy. Let him return with his brothers.

34 For how can I go back to my father without the boy? I could not bear to see the misery that would overwhelm him.”