Genesis 42:6-28 - Joseph Sends Nine Of His Brothers Back To Canaan

⁶ And Joseph was governor in the land, and sold corn to all the people of the land. And his brethren came, and fell flat on the ground before him. ⁷ When Joseph saw his brethren, he knew them: But made strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them saying, "Whence come ye?" And they said, "Out of the land of Canaan, to buy victuals."

⁸ Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him. ⁹ And Joseph remembered his dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them, "Ye are spies, and to see where the land is weak is your coming."

¹⁰ And they said unto him, "Nay, my lord: but to buy victuals thy servants are come. ¹¹ We are all one man's sons, and mean truly, and thy servants are no spies."

¹² And he said unto them, "Nay, verily, but even to see where the land is weak is your coming."

¹³ And they said, "We thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. The youngest is yet with our father, and one no man knoweth where he is."

¹⁴ Joseph said unto them, "That is it that I said unto you, that ye are surely spies. ¹⁵ Hereby ye shall be proved. For by the life of Pharaoh, ye shall not go hence, until your youngest brother be come hither. ¹⁶ Send therefore one of you and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be in prison in the mean season. And thereby shall your words be proved, whether there be any truth in you: or else by the life of Pharaoh, ye are but spies." ¹⁷ And he put them inward three days.

¹⁸ And Joseph said unto the third day, "This do and live, for I fear God. ¹⁹ If ye mean no hurt, let one of your brethren be bound in the prison, and go ye and bring the necessary food unto your households, ²⁰ and bring your youngest brother unto me: that your words may be believed, and that ye die not." And they did so.

²¹ Then they said one to another, "We have verily sinned against our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and would not hear him: therefore is this trouble come upon us."

²² Reuben answered them, saying, "Said I not unto you that ye should not sin against the lad? But ye would not hear; And now verily see, his blood is required."

²³ They were not aware that Joseph understood them, for he spake unto them by an interpreter. ²⁴ And he turned from them and wept, and then turned to them again and communed with them, and took out Simeon from among them and bound him before their eyes, ²⁵ and commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to put every man's money in his sack, and to give them victuals to spend by the way. And so it was done to them. ²⁶ And they laded their asses with the corn and departed thence.

²⁷ And as one of them opened his sack, for to give his ass provender in the Inn, he spied his money in his sack's mouth. ²⁸ And he said unto his brethren, "My money is restored me again, and is even in my sack's mouth." Then their hearts failed them, and were astonished and said one to another, "How cometh it that God dealeth thus with us?"