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Joseph’s Brothers Go to Egypt

42When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, ‘Why do you keep looking at one another? ²I have heard’, he said, ‘that there is grain in Egypt; go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.’ ³So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. ⁴But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he feared that harm might come to him. ⁵Thus the sons of Israel were among the other people who came to buy grain, for the famine had reached the land of Canaan.

6 Now Joseph was governor over the land; it was he who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. ⁷When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke harshly to them. ‘Where do you come from?’ he said. They said, ‘From the land of Canaan, to buy food.’ ⁸Although Joseph had recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. ⁹Joseph also remembered the dreams that he had dreamed about them. He said to them, ‘You are spies; you have come to see the nakedness of the land!’ ¹⁰They said to him, ‘No, my lord; your servants have come to buy food. ¹¹We are all sons of one man; we are honest men; your servants have never been spies.’ ¹²But he said to them, ‘No, you have come to see the nakedness of the land!’