Jacob, Joseph & Egypt

Send one of you which may fet your brother, and ye shall be kept in prison, that your words may be proued, whether there bee trueth in you: or els by the life of Pharaoh ye are but spies.

So he put them in warde three dayes.

Then Ioseph said vnto them the third day, This do, and liue: for I feare God.

If ye be true men, let one of your brethren be bounde in your prison house, and goe ye, carie foode for the famine of your houses:

But bring your yonger brother vnto me, that your wordes may be tried, and that ye dye not: and they did so.

And they said one to another, We haue verily sinned against our brother, in that we sawe the anguish of his soule, when he besought vs, and we would not heare him: therefore is this trouble come vpon vs.

And Reuben answered them, saying, Warned I not you, saying, Sinne not against the childe, and ye would not heare? and lo, his blood is now required.

(And they were not aware that Ioseph vnderstoode them: for he spake vnto them by an interpreter.)

Then he turned from them, and wept, and turned to them againe, and communed with them, and tooke Simeon from among them, and bounde him before their eyes.

So Ioseph commanded that they should fill their sackes with wheate, and put euery mans money againe in his sacke, and giue them vitaile for the iourney: and thus did he vnto them.

And they layed their vitaile vpon their asses, and departed thence.

And as one of them opened his sacke for to giue his asse prouender in the ynne, he espyed his money: for lo, it was in his sackes mouth.

Then he sayde vnto his brethren, My money is restored: for loe, it is euen in my sacke. And their heart fayled them, and they were astonished, and sayde one to another, What is this, that God hath done vnto vs?

And they came vnto Iaakob their father vnto the lande of Canaan, and tolde him all that had befallen them, saying,

The man, who is Lord of the lande, spake roughly to vs, and put vs in prison as spyes of the countrey.

And we sayd vnto him, We are true men, and are no spies.

We be twelue brethren, sonnes of our father: one is not, and the yongest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan.

Then the Lord of the countrey sayde vnto vs, Hereby shall I knowe if ye be true men: Leaue one of your brethren with me, and take foode for the famine of your houses and depart,

And bring your yongest brother vnto me, that I may knowe that ye are no spies, but true men: so will I deliuer you your brother, and yee shall occupie in the land.

And as they emptied their sacks, behold, euery mans bundel of money was in his sacke: and when they and their father sawe the bundels of their money, they were afrayde.

Then Iaakob their father said to them, Ye haue robbed me of my children: Ioseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Beniamin: all these things are against me.

Then Reuben answered his father, saying, Slay my two sonnes, if I bring him not to thee againe: deliuer him to mine hand, and I will bring him to thee againe.

But he said, My sonne shall not go downe with you: for his brother is dead, and he is left alone: if death come vnto him by the way which ye goe, then ye shall bring my gray head with sorow vnto the graue.

Now great famine was in the land.

And when they had eaten vp the vitaile, which they had brought from Egypt, their father sayd vnto them, Turne againe, and bye vs a little foode.