83 : Judah Pleads With Joseph
Then Judah came closer to him and said:
"Oh, my lord, I beg of you, let your servant speak a word in my lord's ear,
and do not let your anger burn against your servant,
even though you are as powerful as Pharaoh.
"My lord asked his servants: 'Have you a father or a brother?'
And we said to my lord: 'We have a father, an old man, and in his old age he had a child,
a little boy whose brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother.
His father loves him.'
"Then you said to your servants: 'Bring him down to me, that I may have a look at him.'
We said to my lord: 'The lad cannot leave his father,
for if he should leave his father, his father would die.'
You said to your servants: 'Unless your youngest brother comes down with you,
you will not see my face again!'
"So when we came up to your servant, my father, we told him your words.
And our father said: 'Go again, and buy us a little food.'
We said: 'We cannot go. Only if our youngest brother is with us can we go,
for we, may not see the man's face if our youngest brother is not with us.'
"And your servant, my father, said to us: 'You know that my wife bore me two sons.
One I lost and surely he was torn to pieces. I have not seen him since.
If you take this one from me too,
and any harm befalls him, you will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.'
"Now, therefore, when I come to your servant, my father, and he sees the lad is not with us,
his life being bound up with the lad's life, he shall surely die,
and your servants will have brought down their father to the grave with sorrow.
"For your servant took upon him responsibility for the lad, saying,
'If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame forever.'
"Now therefore, I beg of you, let your servant stay instead of the lad, a slave to my lord.
And let the lad go home with his brothers.
For how shall I go up to my father if the lad is not with me,
and see the grief that would come upon my father?"
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