handsome coat, which they had taken from him and dipped in blood for
this purpose. Jacob mourned long and bitterly for Joseph, and then he
and his sons lived on much as they had been doing until there was a
famine in the land and no food was to be had.

Then Jacob sent his ten older sons to Egypt to buy corn, for it was
plentiful there. He would not let Benjamin go, however, fearing that
some harm might come to him. When Reuben and his brothers reached
Egypt they were taken to Joseph, the governor, who recognized them at
once, but pretended to think they were spies. They protested in vain
that they had been sent by their father to buy food and that this was
their only errand.

Joseph asked them if they had any other brothers, and they told him
there was one more, Benjamin, the youngest. Then Joseph told them to
go home and come back again bringing Benjamin with them, and that he
would keep Simeon, one of their number, until they did this.

So back they went with their sacks full of corn which Joseph had
allowed them to buy, and told their father what the governor had said
and done. At first Jacob refused to let them take Benjamin away from
him, but when the corn they had brought home was all gone he consented.

Once more the brothers stood before the governor of Egypt and this time
Benjamin was with them. After questioning them once more, letting them
start on their home-ward journey, and then bringing them back again,
Joseph told them who he was and how he had been prospered. He gave
them food and money and clothes and sent them back to Hebron. He also
told them to bring back their father Jacob and gave them wagons in
which to bring his goods.