1. Now the famine was severe in the land.
2. When they finished eating the grain they had brought from Egypt their father said to them, “Go back. Buy us a little food.”
3. But Judah said to him, “The man warned us firmly saying, ‘You won’t see my face unless your brother is with you.’
4. If you send our brother with us, we will go down and buy grain for you for food.
5. But if you won’t send him, we won’t go down, because the man said to us, ‘You won’t see my face unless your brother is with you.’”
6. Then Israel said, “Why did you do evil to me by telling the man that you have another brother?”
7. They said, “The man questioned particularly about us and about our relatives saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have a brother?’ So we spoke to him on the basis of these words. How could we possibly know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’”?
8. Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Please, send the boy with me and we’ll get up and go, so that we’ll live and not die—we and you, and our children.
9. I myself will be his pledge. You can demand him back from my own hand. If I don’t bring him back to you and place him before you, then you can blame me all my days.
10. If we had not delayed, we could have returned twice by now.”
11. Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then do this: take some of the best products of the land in your bags, and bring an offering down to the man—a little balsam and a little honey, gum and myrrh, pistachios and almonds.