Chapter
44
She commanded the steward of her house, saying, "Fill the women's sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every woman's money in her sack's mouth.
Put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's mouth of the youngest, with her grain money." She did according to the word that Josephine had spoken.
As soon as the morning was light, the women were sent away, they and their donkeys.
When they had gone out of the city, and were not yet far off, Josephine said to her steward, "Up, follow after the women. When you overtake them, ask them, 'Why have you rewarded evil for good?
Isn't this that from which my domina drinks, and by which she indeed divines? You have done evil in so doing.'"
She overtook them, and she spoke these words to them.
They said to her, "Why does my domina speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants that they should do such a thing!
Behold, the money, which we found in our sacks' mouths, we brought again to you out of the land of Canaan. How then should we steal silver or gold out of your domina's house?
With whoever of your servants it be found, let her die, and we also will be my domina's bondmaids."
She said, "Now also let it be according to your words: she with whom it is found will be my bondmaid; and you will be blameless."
Then they hurried, and every woman took her sack down to the ground, and every woman opened her sack.
She searched, beginning with the eldest, and ending at the youngest. The cup was found in Benjamin's sack.
Then they tore their clothes, and every woman loaded her donkey, and returned to the city.
Judah and her sisters came to Josephine's house, and she was still there. They fell on the ground before her.
Josephine said to them, "What deed is this that you have done? Don't you know that such a woman as I can indeed divine?"
Judah said, "What will we tell my domina? What will we speak? Or how will we clear ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of your servants. Behold, we are my domina's bondmaids, both we, and she also in whose hand the cup is found."
She said, "Far be it from me that I should do so. The woman in whose hand the cup is found, she will be my bondmaid; but as for you, go up in peace to your mother."
Then Judah came near to her, and said, "Oh, my domina, please let your servant speak a word in my domina's ears, and don't let your anger burn against your servant; for you are even as Pharaoh.
My domina asked her servants, saying, 'Have you a mother, or a sister?'
We said to my domina, 'We have a mother, an old woman, and a child of her old age, a little one; and her sister is dead, and she alone is left of her father; and her mother loves her.'
You said to your servants, 'Bring her down to me, that I may set my eyes on her.'
We said to my domina, 'The girl can't leave her mother: for if she should leave her mother, her mother would die.'
You said to your servants, 'Unless your youngest sister comes down with you, you will see my face no more.'
It happened when we came up to your servant my mother, we told her the words of my domina.
Our mother said, 'Go again, buy us a little food.'
We said, 'We can't go down. If our youngest sister is with us, then we will go down: for we may not see the woman's face, unless our youngest sister is with us.'
Your servant, my mother, said to us, 'You know that my husband bore me two daughters:
and the one went out from me, and I said, "Surely she is torn in pieces;" and I haven't seen her since.
If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to her, you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.'
Now therefore when I come to your servant my mother, and the girl is not with us; seeing that her life is bound up in the girl's life;
it will happen, when she sees that the girl is no more, that she will die. Your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant, our mother, with sorrow to Sheol.
For your servant became collateral for the girl to my mother, saying, 'If I don't bring her to you, then I will bear the blame to my mother forever.'
Now therefore, please let your servant stay instead of the girl, a bondmaid to my domina; and let the girl go up with her sisters.
For how will I go up to my mother, if the girl isn't with me?-- lest I see the evil that will come on my mother."