Joseph was the governor over the land. It was he who sold to all the people of the land. Joseph's brothers came, and bowed themselves down to him with their faces to the earth.
Joseph saw his brothers, and he recognized them, but acted like a stranger to them, and spoke roughly with them. He said to them, "Where did you come from?" They said, "From the land of Canaan to buy food."
They said, "We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more."
Send one of you, and let him get your brother, and you shall be bound, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you, or else by the life of Pharaoh surely you are spies."
They said one to another, "We are most assuredly guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us, and we wouldn't listen. Therefore this distress has come on us."
Reuben answered them, saying, "Didn't I tell you, saying, 'Don't sin against the child,' and you wouldn't listen? Therefore also, behold, his blood is required."
He turned himself about from them, and wept, and he returned to them, and spoke to them, and took Simeon from among them, and bound him before their eyes.
Then Joseph commanded to fill their bags with grain, and to restore every man's money into his sack, and to give them food for the way. So it done to them.
He said to his brothers, "My money is restored! Behold, it is even in my sack." Their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling one to another, saying, "What is this that God has done to us?"
The man, the lord of the land, said to us, 'Hereby will I know that you are honest men. Leave one of your brothers with me, and take grain for the famine of your houses, and go your way.
Bring your youngest brother to me. Then I will know that you are not spies, but that you are honest men. So I will deliver your brother to you, and you shall trade in the land.'"
It happened as they emptied their sacks, that behold, every man's bundle of money was in his sack. When they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid.
Jacob, their father, said to them, "You have bereaved me of my children! Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and you want to take Benjamin away. All these things are against me."
He said, "My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left. If harm happens to him by the way in which you go, then you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol."