76 : Josephs Brothers In Egypt
JACOB heard that there was grain in Egypt and he said to his sons:
"Why do you sit and look at one another?
I have heard that there is grain in Egypt.
Go down and buy some for us there, so that we may live and not die."
So Joseph's ten brothers set out to buy grain in Egypt.
But Benjamin, Joseph's youngest brother, did not go with them,
'for harm might befall him,' said Jacob.
So, among the crowds that came to buy grain, came the sons of Jacob,
for the famine was in the land of Canaan.
Now Joseph was governor of the land. He sold grain to all the people of the land.
Joseph's brothers came to him and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the earth.
When Joseph saw his 'brothers, he recognized them,
but he acted as a stranger toward them and he spoke roughly to them, saying:
"Where did you come from?" "From the land of Canaan to buy food," they said.
Joseph's brothers did not know him,
but he remembered the dreams he had dreamed of them,
and he said to them: "You are spies. It is to find out the secret of this land that you have come."
"No, my lord," they said to him,"your servants have come only to buy food.
We are true men; your servants are not spies."
And Joseph'said to them: "No, you have come to find out the
secrets of the land."
"We are twelve brothers," they said,"the sons,of one man in the land of Canaan.
The youngest one is with our father now, and one is no more."
But Joseph said again:"It is just as I said: You are spies.
This shall be the proof: By the life of Pharaoh,
you shall not go out of here unless your youngest brother comes to this place.
Send one of you and let him fetch your brother,
and you shall be kept in prison so that it may be proved whether there is any truth in your words.
Or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies."
And he put them all together under guard for three days.
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