26. But we said, “We cannot go down. Only if our youngest brother is with us will we go. We cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.”
27. ‘Your servant my father said to us, “You know that my wife bore me two sons.
28. One of them went away from me, and I said, ‘He has surely been torn to pieces.’ And I have not seen him since.
29. If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my grey head down to the grave in misery.”
30. ‘So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father, and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy’s life,
31. sees that the boy isn’t there, he will die. Your servants will bring the grey head of our father down to the grave in sorrow.
32. Your servant guaranteed the boy’s safety to my father. I said, “If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life!”
33. ‘Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers.
34. How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come on my father.’