Genesis 49

¹Then Jacob called his sons and said , Gather yourselves together , that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come .

²Assemble and listen , O sons of Jacob , listen to Israel your father .

³Reuben , you are my firstborn , my might , and the firstfruits of my strength , preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power .

⁴Unstable as water , you shall not have preeminence , because you went up to your father’s bed ; then you defiled it—he went up to my couch !

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

⁶Let my soul come not into their council ; O my glory , be not joined to their company . For in their anger they killed men , and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen .

⁷Cursed be their anger , for it is fierce , and their wrath , for it is cruel ! 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 before you.

⁹Judah is a lion’s cub ; from the prey , my son , you have gone up . He stooped down ; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness ; who dares rouse him?

¹⁰The scepter shall not depart from Judah , nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet , until tribute comes to him; 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 has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes .

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

¹³Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea ; he shall become a haven for ships , and his border shall be at Sidon .

¹⁴Issachar is a strong donkey , crouching between the sheepfolds .

¹⁵He saw that a resting place was good , and that the land was pleasant , so he bowed his shoulder to bear , and became a servant at forced labor .

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

¹⁷Dan shall be a serpent in the way , a viper by the path , that bites the horse’s heels so that his rider falls backward .

¹⁸I wait for your salvation , O Lord.

¹⁹Raiders shall raid Gad , but he shall raid at their heels .

²⁰Asher’s food shall be rich , and he shall yield royal delicacies .

²¹Naphtali is a doe let loose that bears beautiful fawns .

²²Joseph is a fruitful bough , a fruitful bough by a spring ; his branches run over the wall .

²³The archers bitterly attacked him , shot at him , and harassed him severely ,

²⁴yet his bow remained unmoved ; his arms were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (from there is the Shepherd , the Stone of Israel ),

²⁵by the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above , blessings of the deep that crouches beneath , blessings of the breasts and of the womb .

²⁶The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents , up to the bounties of the everlasting hills . May they be on the head of Joseph , and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers .

²⁷Benjamin is a ravenous wolf , in the morning devouring the prey and at evening dividing the spoil .

²⁸All these are the twelve tribes of Israel . This is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him.

²⁹Then he commanded them and said to them, I am to be gathered to my people ; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite ,

³⁰in the cave that is in the field at Machpelah , to the east of Mamre , in the land of Canaan , which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place .

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

³²the field and the cave that is in it were bought from the Hittites .

³³When Jacob finished commanding his sons , he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people .