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Judah Pleads for Benjamin’s Release

18 Then Judah stepped up to him and said, ‘O my lord, let your servant please speak a word in my lord’s ears, and do not be angry with your servant; for you are like Pharaoh himself. ¹⁹My lord asked his servants, saying, “Have you a father or a brother?” ²⁰And we said to my lord, “We have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead; he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him.” ²¹Then you said to your servants, “Bring him down to me, so that I may set my eyes on him.” ²²We said to my lord, “The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.” ²³Then you said to your servants, “Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall see my face no more.” ²⁴When we went back to your servant my father we told him the words of my lord. ²⁵And when our father said, “Go again, buy us a little food”, ²⁶we said, “We cannot go down. Only if our youngest brother goes with us, will we go down; for we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.” ²⁷Then your servant my father said to us, “You know that my wife bore me two sons; ²⁸one left me, and I said, Surely he has been torn to pieces; and I have never seen him since. ²⁹If you take this one also from me, and harm comes to him, you will bring down my grey hairs in sorrow to Sheol.” ³⁰Now therefore, when I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy’s life, ³¹when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die; and your servants will bring down the grey hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol. ³²For your servant became surety for the boy to my father, saying, “If I do not bring him back to you, then I will bear the blame in the sight of my father all my life.” ³³Now therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord in place of the boy; and let the boy go back with his brothers. ³⁴For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the suffering that would come upon my father.’

Joseph Reveals Himself to His Brothers

45Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, ‘Send everyone away from me.’ So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. ²And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. ³Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?’ But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.

4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come closer to me.’ And they came closer. He said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. ⁵And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.