But Judah said, “It is just! Are we not guilty and sinful before the Lord? We sold our brother, our flesh. Why should we now complain that the favour God has lavished on our ancestors is denied to us?” “Did I not warn ye, ‘sin not against the child?’” said Reuben, “and ye would not hearken to my words. His blood is upon us. Why do ye say, therefore, ‘Where is the kindness which the Lord promised unto our fathers?’ Verily we have forfeited His protection.” When Jacob’s sons approached their home, and the patriarch came forth to meet them, he quickly missed the face of Simeon, and he asked, “Where is Simeon, your brother?” Then the brothers told their father all that had happened to them in Egypt, and Jacob said to them: “What is this that ye have done to me? Your brother Joseph I sent to ye to inquire of your welfare, and his face I looked upon no more,—his bloody garments ye brought me, saying, ‘Lo, the wild beasts of the forest have destroyed thy son.’ Simeon I sent with ye to purchase food, and ye tell me that he is imprisoned in a cruel land; and now Benjamin ye wish to take also,—for Joseph and for Benjamin ye would bring my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. No, my son shall not go with ye.” And Reuben said, “The lives of my two sons I place in your hands; if we do not bring back Benjamin safely to thee, their lives shall prove the forfeit.” But Jacob said, “Neither shall ye return again to Egypt; stay here, for my son shall not go with ye, to die as did his brother.” And Judah said to his brothers, “Urge him no more at present. Let us wait until these provisions have been consumed, and when cruel want and hunger press us he will consent to what we ask.” And it came to pass when the provisions were gone, that the sons of his children gathered around Jacob and cried to him, “Oh, give us bread.” And the heart of Jacob was torn with anguish at the cry, and summoning his sons, he said to them, “Hear ye not the voices of your children crying for food? ‘Give us bread,’ they cried to me, and I—I have none to give them. Get ye down to Egypt, I pray ye, and buy us a little food.”