27And your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons.
28When one of them was gone, I said: “Surely he has been torn to pieces.” And I have not seen him since.
29Now if you also take this one from me and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.’
30So if the boy is not with us when I return to your servant, and if my father, whose life is wrapped up in the boy’s life,
31sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. Then your servants will have brought the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow.
32Indeed, your servant guaranteed the boy’s safety to my father, saying, ‘If I do not return him to you, I will bear the guilt before you, my father, all my life.’
33Now please let your servant stay here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy. Let him return with his brothers.
34For how can I go back to my father without the boy? I could not bear to see the misery that would overwhelm him.”
— Genesis 44:27-34