When they presented themselves before Joseph, he took his brother [Benjamin] aside. He said, "I am your brother, so do not feel distressed about whatever they have been doing." 69 Then, when he had equipped them with their equipment, he put his drinking-cup into the saddlebag of his brother. Then a herald proclaimed, 'Ho, cameleers, you are robbers!' 70 Turning towards the herald and his companions, the brothers asked: "What is it that you miss?" 71 "We miss the royal measuring bowl," he replied. "He who brings it shall have a camel-load of corn. I pledge my word for it." 72 Said [the brothers]: "By God! Well do you know that we have not come to commit deeds of corruption in this land, and that we have not been thieving!" 73 They said: But what shall be the requital of this, if you are liars? 74 They replied, "The penalty should be that he in whose saddlebag it is found, should be held [as bondman] to atone for the crime. That is how we punish the wrongdoers." 75 So he [Yusuf (Joseph)] began (the search) in their bags before the bag of his brother. Then he brought it out of his brother's bag. Thus did We plan for Yusuf (Joseph). He could not take his brother by the law of the king (as a slave), except that Allah willed it. (So Allah made the brothers to bind themselves with their way of "punishment, i.e. enslaving of a thief.") We raise to degrees whom We please, but over all those endowed with knowledge is the All-Knowing (Allah). 76 ۞ They said, 'If he is a thief, a brother of his was a thief before.' But Joseph secreted it in his soul and disclosed it not to them, saying, 'You are in a worse case; God knows very well what you are describing.' 77 They said: O chief! he has a father, a very old man, therefore retain one of us in his stead; surely we see you to be of the doers of good. 78 Joseph said: "Allah forbid that we should seize any except him with whom we found our good. Were we to do so, we would surely be one of the wrong-doers." 79