NLT One Year Bible - Flipbook - Page 80
J A N U A R Y
2 1
27 But when they stopped for the night
and one of them opened his sack to get
grain for his donkey, he found his money
in the top of his sack. 28“Look!” he exclaimed to his brothers. “My money has
been returned; it’s here in my sack!”
Then their hearts sank. Trembling, they
said to each other, “What has God done
to us?”
29 When the brothers came to their
father, Jacob, in the land of Canaan, they
told him everything that had happened
to them. 30“The man who is governor of
the land spoke very harshly to us,” they
told him. “He accused us of being spies
scouting the land. 31But we said, ‘We are
honest men, not spies. 32 We are twelve
brothers, sons of one father. One
brother is no longer with us, and the
youngest is at home with our father in
the land of Canaan.’
33“Then the man who is governor of
the land told us, ‘This is how I will find
out if you are honest men. Leave one of
your brothers here with me, and take
grain for your starving families and go on
home. 34But you must bring your youngest brother back to me. Then I will
know you are honest men and not spies.
Then I will give you back your brother,
and you may trade freely in the land.’”
35As they emptied out their sacks,
there in each man’s sack was the bag of
money he had paid for the grain! The
brothers and their father were terrified
when they saw the bags of money. 36 Jacob exclaimed, “You are robbing me
of my children! Joseph is gone! Simeon
is gone! And now you want to take
Benjamin, too. Everything is going
against me!”
37 Then Reuben said to his father,
“You may kill my two sons if I don’t
bring Benjamin back to you. I’ll be responsible for him, and I promise to
bring him back.”
38But Jacob replied, “My son will not
go down with you. His brother Joseph is
dead, and he is all I have left. If anything
should happen to him on your journey,
you would send this grieving, whitehaired man to his grave.*”
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43:1But
the famine continued to ravage
the land of Canaan. 2 When the grain
they had brought from Egypt was almost gone, Jacob said to his sons, “Go
back and buy us a little more food.”
3But Judah said, “The man was serious when he warned us, ‘You won’t see
my face again unless your brother is
with you.’ 4If you send Benjamin with
us, we will go down and buy more food.
5 But if you don’t let Benjamin go, we
won’t go either. Remember, the man
said, ‘You won’t see my face again unless
your brother is with you.’”
6“Why were you so cruel to me?” Jacob* moaned. “Why did you tell him
you had another brother?”
7“The man kept asking us questions
about our family,” they replied. “He
asked, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you
have another brother?’ So we answered
his questions. How could we know he
would say, ‘Bring your brother down
here’?”
8 Judah said to his father, “Send the
boy with me, and we will be on our way.
Otherwise we will all die of starvation—
and not only we, but you and our little
ones. 9 I personally guarantee his safety.
You may hold me responsible if I don’t
bring him back to you. Then let me
bear the blame forever. 10If we hadn’t
wasted all this time, we could have gone
and returned twice by now.”
11So their father, Jacob, finally said to
them, “If it can’t be avoided, then at least
do this. Pack your bags with the best
products of this land. Take them down
to the man as gifts—balm, honey, gum,
aromatic resin, pistachio nuts, and almonds. 12Also take double the money
that was put back in your sacks, as it was
probably someone’s mistake. 13 Then
take your brother, and go back to the
man. 14May God Almighty* give you
mercy as you go before the man, so that
he will release Simeon and let Benjamin
return. But if I must lose my children, so
be it.”
15 So the men packed Jacob’s gifts and
double the money and headed off with
Benjamin. They finally arrived in
