21. Speaking among themselves, they said, “Clearly we are being punished because of what we did to Joseph long ago. We saw his anguish when he pleaded for his life, but we wouldn’t listen. That’s why we’re in this trouble.”
22. “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy?” Reuben asked. “But you wouldn’t listen. And now we have to answer for his blood!”
23. Of course, they didn’t know that Joseph understood them, for he had been speaking to them through an interpreter.
24. Now he turned away from them and began to weep. When he regained his composure, he spoke to them again. Then he chose Simeon from among them and had him tied up right before their eyes.
25. Joseph then ordered his servants to fill the men’s sacks with grain, but he also gave secret instructions to return each brother’s payment at the top of his sack. He also gave them supplies for their journey home.
26. So the brothers loaded their donkeys with the grain and headed for home.
27. But when they stopped for the night and one of them opened his sack to get grain for his donkey, he found his money in the top of his sack.
28. “Look!” he exclaimed to his brothers. “My money has been returned; it’s here in my sack!” Then their hearts sank. Trembling, they said to each other, “What has God done to us?”
29. When the brothers came to their father, Jacob, in the land of Canaan, they told him everything that had happened to them.