• 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.
  • 2 Gather yourselves together, and hear, you sons of Jacob; and listen to Israel your father.
  • 3 Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power:
  • 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.
  • 5 Simeon and Levi are brothers; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.
  • 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.
  • 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, 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.
  • 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?
  • 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.
  • 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:
  • 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 to 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 to 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 bites the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.
  • 18 I have waited for your 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 gives 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 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:)
  • 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:
  • 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.
  • 27 Benjamin shall shred 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 spoke to them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.
  • 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,
  • 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.
  • 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 to his people.