1 And Jacob called to his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.[c]
2 Gather yourselves together, and hear, you sons of Jacob; and listen to Israel your father.[c]
3 Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power:[c]
4 Unstable as water, you shall not excel; because you went up to your father's bed; then defiled you it: he went up to my couch.[c]
5 Simeon and Levi are brothers; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.[c]
6 O my soul, come not you into their secret; to their assembly, my honor, be not you united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they dig down a wall.[c]
7 Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.[c]
8 Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise: your hand shall be in the neck of your enemies; your father's children shall bow down before you.[c]
9 Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, you are gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?[c]
10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and to him shall the gathering of the people be.[c]
11 Binding his foal to the vine, and his ass's colt to the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:[c]
12 His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.[c]
13 Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and his border shall be to Zidon.[c]
14 Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens:[c]
15 And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant to tribute.[c]
16 Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.[c]
17 Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that bites the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.[c]
19 Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.[c]
20 Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties.[c]
21 Naphtali is a hind let loose: he gives goodly words.[c]
22 Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall:[c]
23 The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him:[c]
24 But his bow stayed in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)[c]
25 Even by the God of your father, who shall help you; and by the Almighty, who shall bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:[c]
26 The blessings of your father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brothers.[c]
27 Benjamin shall shred as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.[c]
28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spoke to them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.[c]
29 And he charged 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,[c]
30 In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burial plot.[c]
31 There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.[c]
32 The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth.[c]
33 And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered to his people.[c]