על יוסף ל״וOn Joseph 36
א׳
1[211] While they were in this mood, and their souls occupied with these reflections, a sudden and unexpected discomfiture overtook them. For the steward, by order of his master, with a considerable body of servants, appeared in pursuit waving his hands and beckoning to them to halt.
ב׳
2[212] And when he arrived, all eagerness and panting hard, “You have set the seal,” he said, “to the earlier charges made against you. You have returned evil for good and once more set your feet in the same path of iniquity. You have filched the price of the corn and committed in addition a still worse crime, for villainy grows if it receives condonation.
ג׳
3[213] You have stolen the finest and most valuable of my master’s cups in which he pledged you, you, who were so exceedingly grateful, so exceedingly peace-loving, you who did not so much as know the meaning of ‘spy,’ you who brought double money to pay what was due before, apparently as a trap and snare to serve you in your quest for still more plunder. But wickedness does not prosper in the long run; it is ever scheming to remain hid but is detected in the end.”
ד׳
4[214] While he continued in this strain, they stood paralysed and speechless, suddenly seized by those most painful inflictions, grief and fear, so that they could not even open their mouths. For the onset of unexpected ills can render even eloquent speakers mute.
ה׳
5[215] Yet, unnerved as they were, they did not wish their silence to be construed as a sign that their conscience convicted them, and therefore they replied: “How shall we defend ourselves, and to whom? You will be our judge, you who are also our accuser, who from your experience of us should rather be the advocate did others arraign us. Could it be that after bringing in repayment the money we found in our sacks though no one challenged us, we completely changed our characters, so as to requite our entertainer by mulcting and robbing him? No, we have not done so, and may no such thought ever enter our mind.
ו׳
6[216] Let whoever of the brothers is proved to have the cup be put to death, for death is the penalty at which we assess the crime if it really has been committed, for several reasons. First, because covetousness and the desire for what is another’s is against all law; secondly, because to attempt to injure benefactors is a most unholy deed; thirdly, because to those who pride themselves on their high lineage it is a most shameful reproach if they do not shrink from ruining the prestige of their ancestors by deeds of guilt. And since, if any one of us has committed this theft, he is liable on all these counts, let him die since his deed deserves a thousand deaths.”