¹ And Jacob called to his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which will 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 will 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, mine honour, be not you united: for in their anger they killed a man, and in their selfwill they dugdown 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 who your brothers will praise: your hand will be in the neck of your enemies; your father's children will 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 will rouse him up? ¹⁰ The sceptre will not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and to him will 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 will be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. ¹³ Zebulun will dwell at the haven of the sea and he will be for a haven of ships and his border will 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 will judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. ¹⁷ Dan will be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that bites the horse heels, so that his rider will fall backward. ¹⁸ I have waited for your salvation, O LORD. ¹⁹ Gad, a troop will overcome him: but he will overcome at the last. ²⁰ Out of Asher his bread will be fat, and he will produce royal dainties. ²¹ Naphtali is a doe 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 abode 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 will help you; and by the Almighty, who will 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 will be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brothers. ²⁷ Benjamin will ravin as a wolf: in the morning he will devour the prey, and at night he will 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 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 in it 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.