³⁴ Then Jacob ^(A)tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist, and ^(B)mourned for his son many days. ³⁵ And all his sons and all his daughters ^(C)arose to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, “For ^(D)I shall go down into the grave to my son in mourning.” Thus his father wept for him.

⁴ But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he said, ^(A)“Lest some calamity befall him.”

³⁶ And Jacob their father said to them, “You have ^(A)bereaved me: Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and you want to take ^(B)Benjamin. All these things are against me.”

³⁷ Then Reuben spoke to his father, saying, “Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you; put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.”

³⁸ But he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for ^(C)his brother is dead, and he is left alone. ^(D)If any calamity should befall him along the way in which you go, then you would ^(E)bring down my gray hair with sorrow to the grave.”

²² And we said to my lord, ‘The lad cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.’ ²³ But you said to your servants, ^(A)‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall see my face no more.’

²⁴ “So it was, when we went up to your servant my father, that we told him the words of my lord. ²⁵ And ^(B)our father said, ‘Go back and buy us a little food.’ ²⁶ But we said, ‘We cannot go down; if our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down; for we may not see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’ ²⁷ Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that ^(C)my wife bore me two sons; ²⁸ and the one went out from me, and I said, ^(D)“Surely he is torn to pieces”; and I have not seen him since. ²⁹ But if you ^(E)take this one also from me, and calamity befalls him, you shall bring down my gray hair with sorrow to the grave.’

³⁰ “Now therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us, since ^(F)his life is bound up in the lad’s life, ³¹ it will happen, when he sees that the lad is not with us, that he will die. So your servants will bring down the gray hair of your servant our father with sorrow to the grave. ³² For your servant became surety for the lad to my father, saying, ^(G)‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father forever.’ ³³ Now therefore, please ^(H)let your servant remain instead of the lad as a slave to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers. ³⁴ For how shall I go up to my father if the lad is not with me, lest perhaps I see the evil that would ^[a]come upon my father?”