| 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. |
|
