³But Judah said to him, “The man gave us a strong warning. He said, ‘You won’t see my face again unless your brother comes with you.’ ⁴So send our brother along with us. Then we’ll go down and buy food for you.

⁵“If you won’t send him, we won’t go down. The man said to us, ‘You won’t see my face again unless your brother comes with you.’ ”

⁶Israel asked, “Why did you bring this trouble to me? Why did you tell the man you had another brother?”

⁷They replied, “The man questioned us closely about ourselves and our family. ‘Is your father still living?’ he asked us. ‘Do you have another brother?’

“We just answered his questions. How could we possibly know he would say, ‘Bring your brother down here’?”

⁸Judah spoke to Israel his father. “Send the boy along with me,” he said. “We’ll go at once. Then we and you and our children will live and not die.

⁹“I myself promise to keep him safe. You can hold me accountable for him. I’ll bring him back to you. I’ll set him right here in front of you. If I don’t, you can put the blame on me for the rest of my life.

¹⁰“As it is, we’ve already waited too long. We could have gone to Egypt and back twice by now.”

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