'YOU WILL BE TESTED"

 Joseph launched into series of tests designed to reveal who his brothers were at heart. He started by speaking to them harshly, through an interpreter, accusing them of being foreign spies. To defend themselves, they told him about their family-including the key fact that they had a younger brother still at home. Joseph tried to hide his excitement. What this little brother really alive? Now Joseph knew how to proceed.  He said: "By this you will be tested," and then he told them that he must see this youngest brother. In time, he agreed to let them return home to fetch the youngest if one of them to remain behind as a hostage. -GENESIS 42:9-20. 

As the brothers talked matters over, unaware that Joseph could undertand them, they reproached themselves for the terrible sin they had committed 20 years earlier.  "We are surely being punished on account of our brother," they said, "because we saw his distress when he begged us to show compassion, but we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us."  Joseph understood what they were saying, and he had to turn aside so they could not see his tears.  (Genesis 42:21-24) He knew, though, that real repentance involves far more than a mere feeling of regret over the consequences of a wicked deed. So he proceeded with his test. 

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