Judah: O, my lord, let your servant please speak a private word to you. Please don’t be angry with me, for you are just like Pharaoh himself. ¹⁹ You asked us once if we had a father or a brother, ²⁰ and we told you, “Yes. We have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead, so he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him dearly.” ²¹ Then you told us to bring the boy down to you, so that you could see him. ²² At first we said to you, “The boy cannot leave his father because his father would die without him,” ²³ but you told us that unless he came with us, you wouldn’t agree to see us again.

²⁴ When we went back to your servant, our father, we told him what you said, my lord. ²⁵ And when our father asked us to go again to buy more food, ²⁶ we told him, “We cannot go without our youngest brother, or we won’t be able to get in to see him.” So our youngest brother came with us. ²⁷ Then your servant, my father, responded, “You know that my wife Rachel bore me two sons: ²⁸ one went off and never came back, and I know he was without a doubt torn to pieces. I haven’t seen him since he left. ²⁹ But now if you take my youngest also from me and any harm should come to him, the sorrow would kill me. I can’t allow you to condemn this old, gray head to the grave.”

^30-31 So now if I go back to your servant, my father, without the boy, he will die because his life depends completely on the welfare of his boy. As soon as he sees that Benjamin is not with us, the sorrow will kill him and we, your servants, will condemn the old, gray head of our father, your servant, to the grave. ³² I gave my father my word that I would take care of the boy and return him safely home. I told him, “If I don’t bring him back to you in one piece, then I am perfectly willing to bear the blame forever.” ³³ So please let me, your servant, remain as your slave in place of the boy; and let him go back with his brothers. ³⁴ For how can I go back to my father without the boy? I couldn’t stand to see the terrible suffering this would put him through.