The Silver Cup as a Final Test

¹He commanded the steward of his house, saying, “Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man’s money in his sack’s mouth.

²Put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack’s mouth of the youngest with his grain money.” He did according to the word that Joseph had spoken.

³As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their donkeys.

⁴When they had gone out of the city, and were not yet far off, Joseph said to his steward, “Get up and follow after the men. When you overtake them, ask them, ‘Why have y’all rewarded evil for good?

⁵Isn’t this the one from which my lord drinks and with which he divinizes-divinizes? This is an evil thing y’all have done.’”

⁶When he overtook them, he spoke these words to them.

⁷They said to him, “Why does my lord say such words? Far be it from your servants that they would do such a thing!

⁸Look, the money that we found in the mouth of our sacks, we brought again to you out of the land of Canaan. How could we steal silver or gold out of your lord’s house?

⁹With whomever of your servants it is found, let him die, and we also will be my lord’s slaves.”

¹⁰He said, “Now also let it be according to y’all’s words. He with whom it is found will be my slave, and the rest of y’all will be blameless.”

¹¹Then they hurried, and each man took his sack down to the ground, and each man opened his sack.

¹²He searched, beginning with the oldest, and ending at the youngest. The cup was found in Benjamin’s sack.

¹³Then they tore their clothes, and each man loaded his donkey, and returned to the city.

¹⁴Judah and his brothers came to Joseph’s house, and he was still there. They fell on the ground before him.

¹⁵Joseph said to them, “What deed is this that y’all have done? Don’t you know that such a man as I can divinize-divinize?”

¹⁶Judah said, “What will we tell my lord? What will we speak? How will we clear ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of your servants. We are now slaves to my lord, both we and he also in whose hand the cup is found.”

¹⁷He said, “Far be it from me that I should do so. The man in whose hand the cup was found, he will be my slave. But the rest of y’all, go in peace to y’all’s father.”

¹⁸Then Judah came near to him, and said, “Oh, my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ears, and don’t let your anger burn against your servant for you are even as Pharaoh.

¹⁹My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have y’all a father, or a brother?’

²⁰We said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him.’

²¹You said to your servants, ‘Y’all bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him.’

²²We said to my lord, ‘The boy can’t leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.’

²³You said to y’all’s servants, ‘Unless y’all’s youngest brother comes down with y’all, y’all will see my face no more.’

²⁴When we came up to your servant my father, we told him the words of my lord.

²⁵Our father said, ‘Y’all go again and buy us a little food.’

²⁶We said, ‘We can’t go down. If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down, because we cannont see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’

²⁷Your servant, my father, said to us, ‘Y’all know that my wife bore me two sons.

²⁸One went out from me, and I said, “He has been torn-torn to pieces,” and I haven’t seen him since.

²⁹If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, y‘all will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.’

³⁰Now therefore when I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, since his life is bound up in the boy’s life,

³¹when he sees that the boy is no more, he will die. Your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant, our father, with sorrow to Sheol.

³²For your servant became collateral for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I don’t bring him to you, then I will bear the blame to my father forever.’

³³Now therefore, please let your servant stay instead of the boy, my lord’s slave. Let the boy go up with his brothers.

³⁴For how will I go up to my father, if the boy isn’t with me? Lest I see the evil that will come on my father.”