19. If you’re honest, let one of your brothers remain as a prisoner in the guardhouse where you’ve been, while you, go and bring grain for the hunger in your homes.
20. And your youngest brother, bring to me so that your words can be verified—and you won’t die.” So they did.
21. Then each man said to his brother, “We’re truly guilty for our brother. We saw the distress of his soul when he begged us for mercy, but we didn’t listen. That’s why this distress has come to us.”
22. Reuben answered them and said, “Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t sin against the boy’? But you didn’t listen. Now, see how his blood is now being accounted for.”
23. They did not know that Joseph was listening, since there was an interpreter between them.
24. He turned away from them and wept. When he turned back to them and spoke to them, he took Simeon from them and tied him up before their eyes.
25. Then Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to return each man’s money to his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. So it was done for them.
26. Then they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left from there.
27. As one of them opened his sack to give fodder to his donkey at the lodge, he saw his money—behold, it was in the opening of his bag.
28. So he said to his brothers, “My money has been returned! Look, it’s in my bag.” Their hearts sank. Trembling, each one turned to his brother and said, “What is this that God has done to us?”
29. When they came to their father Jacob, in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying,
30. “The man, the lord of the land, spoke with us harshly, and took us as spies of the land.