¹ Then Jacob called for his sons and said, “Gather around so that I can tell you what will happen to you in the days to come:

² Come together and listen, O sons of Jacob; listen to your father Israel.

³ Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, excelling in honor, excelling in power.

⁴ Uncontrolled as the waters, you will no longer excel, because you went up to your father’s bed, onto my couch, and defiled it.

⁵ Simeon and Levi are brothers; their swords¹ are weapons of violence.

1. Or dwelling places

⁶ May I never enter their council; may I never join their assembly. For they kill men in their anger, and hamstring oxen on a whim.

⁷ Cursed be their anger, for it is strong, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.

⁸ Judah,¹ your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the necks of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down to you.

1. Judah sounds like the Hebrew for praise.

⁹ Judah is a young lion— my son, you return from the prey. Like a lion he crouches and lies down; like a lioness, who dares to rouse him?

¹⁰ The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the staff from between his feet,¹ until Shiloh² comes and the allegiance of the nations is his.

1. Or from his descendants
2. Or until the one to whom tribute belongs

¹¹ He ties his donkey to the vine, his colt to the choicest branch. He washes his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes.

¹² His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth are whiter than milk.

¹³ Zebulun shall dwell by the seashore and become a harbor for ships; his border shall extend to Sidon.

¹⁴ Issachar is a strong donkey, lying down between the sheepfolds.¹

1. Or saddlebags or hearths

¹⁵ He saw that his resting place was good and that his land was pleasant, so he bent his shoulder to the burden and submitted to labor as a servant.

¹⁶ Dan shall provide justice for his people¹ as one of the tribes of Israel.

1. Or Dan shall judge his people; Dan means He has judged or He has vindicated.

¹⁷ He will be a snake by the road, a viper in the path that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider tumbles backward.

¹⁸ I await Your salvation, O LORD.

¹⁹ Gad¹ will be attacked by raiders, but he will attack their heels.

1. Gad sounds like the Hebrew for raid and also for band of raiders.

²⁰ Asher’s food will be rich; he shall provide royal delicacies.

²¹ Naphtali is a doe set free that bears beautiful fawns.¹

1. Or gives beautiful words or bears fawns of the fold

²² Joseph is a fruitful vine— a fruitful vine by a spring, whose branches scale the wall.¹

1. Or Joseph is a wild donkey, a wild donkey by a spring, with his wild colts beside the wall

²³ The archers attacked him with bitterness; they aimed at him in hostility.

²⁴ Yet he steadied his bow, and his strong arms were tempered by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, in the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,

²⁵ by the God of your father who helps you, and by the Almighty¹ who blesses you, with blessings of the heavens above, with blessings of the depths below, with blessings of the breasts and womb.

1. Hebrew Shaddai

²⁶ The blessings of your father have surpassed the blessings of the ancient mountains¹ and the bounty of the everlasting hills. May they rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the prince of his brothers.

1. Or of my ancestors

²⁷ Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divides the plunder.”

²⁸ These are the tribes of Israel, twelve in all, and this was what their father said to them. He blessed them, and he blessed each one with a suitable blessing.

The Death of Jacob

²⁹ Then Jacob instructed them, “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite.

³⁰ The cave is in the field of Machpelah near Mamre, in the land of Canaan. This is the field Abraham purchased from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site.

³¹ There Abraham and his wife Sarah are buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah are buried, and there I buried Leah.

³² The field and the cave that is in it were purchased from the Hittites.”

³³ When Jacob had finished instructing his sons, he pulled his feet into the bed and breathed his last, and he was gathered to his people.