Genesis 44:18-34

18Then Judah approached him, and said, “Oh my lord, may your servant please speak a word in my lord’s ears, and 12do not be angry with your servant; for 3you are equal to Pharaoh.

194My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father or a brother?’

20We said to my lord, ‘We have an old father and 5a little child of his old age. Now 6his brother is dead, so he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him.’

21Then you said to your servants, ‘7Bring him down to me that I may set my eyes on him.’

22But we said to my lord, ‘The lad cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, 8his father would die.’

23You said to your servants, however, ‘9Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.’

24Thus it came about when we went up to your servant my father, we told him the words of my lord.

2510Our father said, ‘Go back, buy us a little food.’

26But we said, ‘We cannot go down. If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down; for we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’

27Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that 11my wife bore me two sons;

28and the one went out from me, and 12I said, “Surely he is torn in pieces,” and I have not seen him since.

29If you take this one also from 13me, and harm befalls him, you will 14bring my gray hair down to Sheol in 15sorrow.’

30Now, therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us, since 1617his life is bound up in the lad’s life,

31when he sees that the lad is not with us, he will die. Thus your servants will 18bring the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow.

32For your servant 19became surety for the lad to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then 20let me bear the blame before my father forever.’

33Now, therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the lad a slave to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers.

34For how shall I go up to my father if the lad is not with me--for fear that I see the evil that would 21overtake my father?”