Judah Pleads for Benjamin’s Freedom

44:18-34

18 Then Judah went near to him and said, “Please, my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ears, and do not let your anger burn against your servant, since you are like Pharaoh. 19 My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Do you have a father or another brother?’ 20 And we said to my lord, ‘We have an aged father and the youngest son of his old age. But his brother is dead, so he is left by himself from his mother, and his father loves him.’

21 “Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, and I will set my eyes on him.’ 22 And we said to my lord, ‘The young man is not able to leave his father, because if he leaves his father, then he will die.’ 23 But you said to your servants, ‘If your youngest brother does not come down with you, you will not see my face again.’

24 “Then it happened when we went up to your servant my father, then we related to him the words of my lord. 25 Then our father said, ‘Return, buy a little food for us.’ 26 But we said, ‘We cannot go down. But if our youngest brother is with us, then we will go. For we are not able to see the man’s face and our youngest brother not be with us.’ 27 Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore two sons for me. 28 And the one went away from me, and I have said, “He was surely torn to pieces,” and I have not seen him until now. 29 So if you also take this one from my presence, and harm were to meet him, then you would bring my gray head down in misery to Sheol.’

30 “And now, when I go to your servant my father and the young man is not with us, since his soul is bound to his soul, 31 then it will happen when he sees that the young man is not there, then he will die! And your servants will bring the gray head of your servant our father down in sorrow to Sheol! 32 For your servant guaranteed the young man to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I will have sinned against my father all the days.’

33 “And now, please let your servant stay as a slave for my lord instead of the young man, and let the young man go up with his brothers. 34 For how will I go up to my father if the young man is not with me? I fear to see the misery that would find my father!”