1 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves
together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last
days.
2 Gather
yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your
father.
3 Reuben,
thou art my
firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of
dignity, and the excellency of power:
4 Unstable
as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father's bed;
then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.
5 Simeon
and Levi are brethren;
instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.
6 O
my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be
not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they
digged down a wall.
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.
8 Judah,
thou art he whom
thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy
father's children shall bow down before thee.
9 Judah is a
lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he
couched as a lion, and as an old lion; 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 Binding
his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washed his
garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:
12 His
eyes shall be red
with wine, and his teeth white with milk.
13 Zebulun
shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto
Zidon.
14 Issachar is a
strong ass couching down between two burdens:
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 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 in the path, that biteth the horse
heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.
18 I
have waited for thy salvation, O LORD.
19 Gad,
a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.
20 Out
of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal
dainties.
21 Naphtali is a hind
let loose: he giveth goodly words.
22 Joseph is a
fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches
run over the wall:
23 The
archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him:
24 But
his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the
hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the
shepherd, the stone of Israel:)
25 Even by the God of thy father, who shall
help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven
above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of
the womb:
26 The
blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors
unto 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
brethren.
27 Benjamin
shall ravin as a
wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the
spoil.
28 All
these are the
twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them, and
blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.
29 And
he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury
me with 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 Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the
Hittite for a possession of a buryingplace.
31 There
they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his
wife; and there I buried Leah.
32 The
purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was 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 yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.
