"The man specifically asked about us and our relatives," they responded. "He asked us, "Is your father still alive?' and "Do you have another brother?' So we answered his questions. How could we have known that he would tell us to bring our brother back with us?"

"But we told him, "We can't go back there. If our youngest brother accompanies us, we'll go back, but we cannot see the man's face again unless our youngest brother accompanies us.'

But bring your youngest brother back to me so I can be sure that you're honest men, and not spies. Then I'll return your brother to you, and you'll be allowed to trade anywhere in the land.'"

Now Rebekah had a brother named Laban, who ran out to the man and met him at the spring.

"But look!" Jacob pointed out to his mother Rebekah, "My brother Esau is a hairy man, but I'm smooth skinned.

But Judah reminded him, "The man distinctly warned us: "You'll never see my face unless your brother comes with you.'

But if you don't send him, we're not going, because the man told us, "You'll never see my face unless your brother is with you.'"

Israel replied, "Why did you make all this trouble by telling the man that you have another brother?"

And be sure to take your brother, too. So get up, return to the man,

and may God Almighty cause the man to show compassion toward you. May he send all of you back, including your other brother and Benjamin. Now as for me, if I lose my children, I lose them."

So Judah instructed Onan, "You are to have sexual relations with your dead brother's wife, performing the duty of a brother-in-law with her, and have offspring for your brother."

Instead, Cain told his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the wilderness." When they were outside in the fields, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Later, the LORD asked Cain, "Where's your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he answered. "Am I my brother's guardian?"

When Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, accompanied by Laban's sheep, Jacob approached the well, rolled the stone from the opening of the well, and then watered his mother's brother Laban's flock.

But Onan knew that the offspring wouldn't be his own heir, so whenever he had sexual relations with his brother's wife, he would spill his semen on the ground to avoid fathering offspring for his brother.

As Joseph looked up and recognized his brother Benjamin, his own mother's son, he asked, "Is this your youngest brother about whom you spoke to me?" And he addressed him directly, "May God be gracious to you, my son."

The palace manager searched for the cup, beginning with the oldest brother's sack and ending with the youngest brother's sack, and there it was! in Benjamin's sack.

Later, the messengers returned to Jacob and reported, "We went to your brother Esau. He's now coming to meet you and he has 400 men with him!"

When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was helping his brothers tend their flocks. He was a young man at that time, as were the children of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. But Joseph would come back and tell his father that his brothers were doing bad things. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his brothers, since he was born to him in his old age, so he had made a richly-embroidered tunic for him.

Therefore, please allow your servant to remain as a slave to Your Excellency, instead of the young man, and let the young man go back home with his brothers.