1. Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, so Jacob said to his sons, “Why are you looking at each other?”
2. Then he said, “Look! I’ve heard that there’s grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some grain for us there so that we’ll live and not die.”
3. So Joseph’s brothers went down, ten of them, to buy grain from Egypt.
4. But Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, Jacob did not send, for he said, “An accident might happen to him.”
5. The sons of Israel went to buy grain among the others who were coming, because the famine was in the land of Canaan.
6. Now Joseph was the ruler over the land. He was the provider of grain for all the people of the earth.
7. Then Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down to him with faces to the ground. When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he made himself unrecognizable to them. Then he spoke harshly and said to them, “Where have you come from?” “From the land of Canaan,” they said, “to buy grain as food.”