6. Israel asked, “Why did you bring this trouble on me by telling the man you had another brother?”
7. They replied, “The man questioned us closely about ourselves and our family. ‘Is your father still living?’ he asked us. ‘Do you have another brother?’ We simply answered his questions. How were we to know he would say, ‘Bring your brother down here’?”
8. Then Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy along with me and we will go at once, so that we and you and our children may live and not die.
9. I myself will guarantee his safety; you can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life.
10. As it is, if we had not delayed, we could have gone and returned twice.”
11. Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be, then do this: Put some of the best products of the land in your bags and take them down to the man as a gift—a little balm and a little honey, some spices and myrrh, some pistachio nuts and almonds.