Jacob, Joseph & Egypt

My lord asked his servants, 'Do you have a father? or a brother?'

We answered my lord, 'We have a father who is an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one whose brother is dead; so that of his mother's children he alone is left; and his father loves him.'

But you said to your servants, 'Bring him down to me, so that I can see him.'

We answered my lord, 'The boy can't leave his father; if he were to leave his father, his father would die.'

You said to your servants, 'You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.'

We went up to your servant my father and told him what my lord had said;

but when our father said, 'Go again, and buy us some food,'

we answered, 'We can't go down. Only if our youngest brother is with us will we go down, because we can't see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us.'

Then your servant my father said to us, 'You know that my wife bore me two sons:

the one went out from me, and I said, "Surely he has been torn to pieces," and I haven't seen him since.

Now if you take this one away from me too, and something happens to him, you will bring my gray hair down to Sh'ol with grief.'

So now if I go to your servant my father, and the boy isn't with us - seeing how his heart is bound up with the boy's heart -

when he sees that the boy isn't with us, he will die; and your servants will bring the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sh'ol with grief.

For your servant himself guaranteed his safety; I said, 'If I fail to bring him to you, then I will bear the blame before my father forever.'

Therefore, I beg you, let your servant stay as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go up with his brothers.

For how can I go up to my father if the boy isn't with me? I couldn't bear to see my father so overwhelmed by anguish."

At last Yosef could no longer control his feelings in front of his attendants and cried, "Get everybody away from me!" So no one else was with him when Yosef revealed to his brothers who he was.

He wept aloud, and the Egyptians heard, and Pharaoh's household heard.

Yosef said to his brothers, "I am Yosef! Is it true that my father is still alive?" His brothers couldn't answer him, they were so dumbfounded at seeing him.

Yosef said to his brothers, "Please! Come closer." And they came closer. He said, "I am Yosef, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.

But don't be sad that you sold me into slavery here or angry at yourselves, because it was God who sent me ahead of you to preserve life.

The famine has been over the land for the last two years, and for yet another five years there will be neither plowing nor harvest.

God sent me ahead of you to ensure that you will have descendants on earth and to save your lives in a great deliverance.

So it was not you who sent me here, but God; and he has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of all his household and ruler over the whole land of Egypt.

Hurry, go up to my father, and tell him, 'Here is what your son Yosef says: "God has made me lord of all Egypt! Come down to me, don't delay!