¹⁴“It’s just as I told you,” Joseph said to them. “You’re spies! ¹⁵This is how you’ll be tested: I solemnly swear, as surely as Pharaoh lives, that you won’t leave this place unless your youngest brother comes here. ¹⁶One of you must be sent to get your brother while the rest of you stay in prison. We’ll see if you’re telling the truth. If not, I solemnly swear, as surely as Pharaoh lives, you are spies!” ¹⁷Then he put them in jail for three days.

¹⁸On the third day Joseph said to them, “Do this, and you will live. I, too, fear God. ¹⁹If you are honest men, you will let one of your brothers stay here in prison. The rest of you will go and take grain back to your starving families. ²⁰But you must bring me your youngest brother. This will show that you’ve been telling the truth. Then you won’t die.” So they agreed.

²¹They said to each other, “We’re surely being punished for what we did to our brother. We saw how troubled he was when he pleaded with us for mercy, but we wouldn’t listen. That’s why we’re in trouble now.”

²²Reuben said to them, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen. Now we must pay for this bloodshed.”

²³They didn’t know that Joseph could understand them, because he was speaking through an interpreter. ²⁴He stepped away from them to cry. When he could speak to them again, he came back. Then he picked Simeon and had him arrested right in front of their eyes.

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