Genesis 49

¹And Jacob called to his sons and said, 'Gather, and I will tell you all what will befall you in the days to come.

²Gather yourselves and hear, O sons of Jacob, and listen to Israel your father.

³Reuben, my firstborn you, my might and the first of my vigor, excelling in elevation and excelling in strength.

⁴Reckless as water, you shall not excel, for you went up to your father's beds; then you defiled my couch — he went up.

⁵Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords.

⁶Into their council let not my being enter; in their assembly let not my glory be joined — for in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen.

⁷Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their fury, for it is hard. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.

⁸Judah — your brothers shall praise you, your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies, your father's sons shall bow down to you.

⁹A lion's whelp is Judah; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouched, he lay down like a lion, and like a lioness — who will rouse him?

¹⁰The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

¹¹Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he washes his garment in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes.

¹²His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.

¹³Zebulun shall settle by the shore of the sea, and he shall be by the shore of ships, and his flank shall be toward Sidon.

¹⁴Issachar is a rawboned donkey crouching between the sheepfolds.

¹⁵And he saw that resting was good, and that the land was pleasant, and he bent his shoulder to bear, and became a toiling serf.

¹⁶Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.

¹⁷Dan shall be a serpent upon the road, a horned viper upon the path, that bites the horse's heels, and its rider falls backward.

¹⁸For your salvation I wait, O Lord.

¹⁹Gad — a raiding band shall raid him, but he shall raid at their heel.

²⁰From Asher, his food shall be rich, and he shall yield royal delicacies.

²¹Naphtali is a doe set free, who gives beautiful words.

²²A fruitful son is Joseph, a fruitful son by a spring, daughters advance upon a wall.

²³And they bitterly attacked him, and shot at him, and the masters of arrows hated him.

²⁴And his bow remained firm in strength, and the arms of his hands stayed supple, by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob — from there the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel.

²⁵From the God of your father who will help you, and from Shaddai who will bless you — blessings of the heavens above, blessings of the deep that crouches below, blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

²⁶The blessings of your father surpass the blessings of my progenitors, to the boundary of the everlasting hills. Let them be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of him who is set apart from his brothers.

²⁷Benjamin — a wolf that tears; in the morning he devours prey, and at evening he divides spoil.

²⁸All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke to them, and he blessed them — each man according to his blessing he blessed them.

²⁹And he commanded them, and said to them, I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers, at the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite.

³⁰in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite as a burial possession.

³¹There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.

³²the purchase of the field and the cave that is in it, from the sons of Heth.

³³And Jacob finished commanding his sons, and he gathered his feet to the bed, and he breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.