Genesis 49:2-33

Leeser^{(i) 2} Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father. ³ Reuben, thou art my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength; the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power should be thine. ⁴ Unstable as water, thou shalt not have the excellence; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou the one who ascended my couch. ⁵ Simeon and Levi are brethren; weapons of violence are their swords. ⁶ Into their secret shall my soul not come; unto their assembly my spirit shall not be united; for in their anger they slew the man, and in their self-will they lamed the ox. ⁷ Cursed 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. ⁸ Judah, thou art the one thy brothers shall praise, thy hand shall be on the neck of thy enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down unto thee. ⁹ Like a lion’s whelp, O Judah, from the prey, my son, thou risest: he stoopeth down, he croucheth as a lion, and as a lioness, who shall rouse him up? ¹⁰ The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet; until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. ¹¹ He bindeth unto the vine his foal, and to the vine-branch his ass’s colt; he washeth his garments in wine, and in the blood of grapes his clothes; ¹² His eyes shall be red from wine, and his teeth white from milk. ¹³ Zebulun shall dwell at the margin of the seas; and he shall be at the haven of ships; and his border shall be near to Zidon. ¹⁴ Issachar is a strong-boned ass, couching down between the stables. ¹⁵ And when he saw the resting-place that it was good, and the land that it was pleasant, he bent his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute. ¹⁶ Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. ¹⁷ Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder on the path, that biteth the horse in the heels, so that his rider falleth backward. ¹⁸ For thy salvation, I hope, O Lord. ¹⁹ Gad, troops will band against him; but he shall wound their heel. ²⁰ Out of Asher cometh fat bread, and he shall yield royal dainties. ²¹ Naphtali is like a fleet hind; he bringeth pleasant words. ²² Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring; the branches of which run over the wall. ²³ And they embittered his life, and they shot at him, and they hated him, the men of the arrows. ²⁴ But his bow abode in strength, and his arm and his hands remained firm; from the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, from there thou becamest the shepherd, the stone of Israel. ²⁵ From the God of thy father, who will help thee; and from the Almighty, who will bless thee, with blessings of heaven above, with blessings of the deep that coucheth beneath, with blessings of the breasts, and of the womb; ²⁶ With the blessings of thy father that have excelled the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: these shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separated from his brothers. ²⁷ Benjamin shall be as a wolf that rendeth: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at evening he shall divide the spoil. ²⁸ All these are the tribes of Israel, twelve in number; and this is what their father spoke unto them, and wherewith he blessed them; every one according to his proper blessing blessed he them. ²⁹ And he charged them and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people; bury me near my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, ³⁰ In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which field Abraham bought of Ephron the Hittite, for a possession as a burying-place, ³¹ (There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah,) ³² Purchasing the field and the cave that is therein from the children of Heth. ³³ And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed; and he departed this life, and was gathered unto his people.