Pursuing Reconciliation “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. 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. Joseph was no longer able to control himself before all his attendants, so he cried out, “Make everyone go out from my presence!” No one remained with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. He w

How God Changes Hearts Now the famine was severe in the land. When they finished eating the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Return, buy us a little more food.” … Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me and we will go immediately. Then we will live and not die—we and you and our little ones. I myself pledge security for him; you may hold me liable. If I do not bring him back to you and place him here before you, I will bear th

How God Leads People to Repentance When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why are you looking at each other?” He then said, “Look, I hear that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy grain for us so that we may live and not die.” So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt. But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he said, “What if some accident happens to him?” So Israel’s sons came to buy grai