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18 Judah then stepped up to him and said: “I beg you, my lord, let your servant appeal to my lord, and do not become angry with your servant, for you are the equal of Pharaoh. 19 My lord asked his servants,[a] ‘Have you a father, or another brother?’ 20 So we said to my lord, ‘We have an aged father, and a younger brother, the child of his old age. This one’s full brother is dead, and since he is the only one by his mother who is left, his father is devoted to him.’(A) 21 Then you told your servants, ‘Bring him down to me that I might see him.’

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Footnotes

  1. 44:19 My lord asked his servants: such frequently repeated expressions in Judah’s speech show the formal court style used by a subject in speaking to a high official.

23 But you told your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see me again.’(A) 24 When we returned to your servant my father, we reported to him the words of my lord.

25 “Later, our father said, ‘Go back and buy some food for us.’ 26 So we reminded him, ‘We cannot go down there; only if our youngest brother is with us can we go, for we may not see the man if our youngest brother is not with us.’ 27 Then your servant my father said to us, ‘As you know, my wife bore me two sons. 28 One of them, however, has gone away from me, and I said, “He must have been torn to pieces by wild beasts!” I have not seen him since.(B) 29 If you take this one away from me too, and a disaster befalls him, you will send my white head down to Sheol in grief.’

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Chapter 45

The Truth Revealed.[a] Joseph could no longer restrain himself in the presence of all his attendants, so he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw from me!” So no one attended him when he made himself known to his brothers. But his sobs were so loud that the Egyptians heard him, and so the news reached Pharaoh’s house. (A)“I am Joseph,” he said to his brothers. “Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could give him no answer, so dumbfounded were they at him.

“Come closer to me,” Joseph told his brothers. When they had done so, he said: “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. But now do not be distressed, and do not be angry with yourselves for having sold me here. It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you.(B)

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Footnotes

  1. 45:1–28 Joseph reveals his identity and the family is reconciled.