Genesis 44:14-34

14When Judah and his brothers reached Joseph’s house, he was still there. They fell to the ground before him.

15“What have you done?” Joseph said to them. “Didn’t you know that a man like me could uncover the truth by divination?”

16“What can we say to my lord?” Judah replied. “How can we plead? How can we justify ourselves? God has exposed your servants’ iniquity. We are now my lord’s slaves — both we and the one in whose possession the cup was found.”

17Then Joseph said, “I swear that I will not do this. The man in whose possession the cup was found will be my slave. The rest of you can go in peace to your father.”

18But Judah approached him and said, “My lord, please let your servant speak personally to my lord. Do not be angry with your servant, for you are like Pharaoh.

19My lord asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father or a brother?’

20and we answered my lord, ‘We have an elderly father and a younger brother, the child of his old age. The boy’s brother is dead. He is the only one of his mother’s sons left, and his father loves him.’

21Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him to me so that I can see him.’

22But we said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father. If he were to leave, his father would die.’

23Then you said to your servants, ‘If your younger brother does not come down with you, you will not see me again.’

24“This is what happened when we went back to your servant my father: We reported to him the words of my lord.

25But our father said, ‘Go again, and buy us a little food.’

26We told him, ‘We cannot go down unless our younger brother goes with us. If our younger brother isn’t with us, we cannot see the man.’

27Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons.

28One is gone from me — I said he must have been torn to pieces — and I have never seen him again.

29If you also take this one from me and anything happens to him, you will bring my gray hairs down to Sheol in sorrow.’

30“So if I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us — his life is wrapped up with the boy’s life —

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

32Your servant became accountable to my father for the boy, saying, ‘If I do not return him to you, I will always bear the guilt for sinning against you, my father.’

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

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