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, principal in dignity, and the principal in power.

⁴ Unstable as water, thou shalt not be principal because thou didst go up to thy father's bed; then thou became defiled, going up to my couch.

⁵ Simeon and Levi [are] brethren; instruments of injustice are their weapons.

⁶ Let my soul not enter into their secret; nor let my honour join their assembly; for in their anger they slew a man, and in their own will they dug down a wall.

⁷ Cursed [be] their anger, which [is] strong, and their wrath, which is hard; 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] on the neck of thine enemies; thy father's sons 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 be taken from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes; 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 roots; he washed his garments in wine and his covering in the blood of grapes;

¹² His eyes red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.

¹³ Zebulun shall dwell at the port of the sea; and he [shall be] for a port 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 bites the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

¹⁸ I have waited for thy saving health, O LORD.

¹⁹ Gad, an army shall invade him, but he shall invade at the last.

²⁰ Out of Asher his bread [shall be] fat, and he shall yield delight unto the king.

²¹ Naphtali [is] a hind let loose, who shall give forth a good word.

²² Joseph [is] a fruitful bough, [even] a fruitful bough by a fountain, [whose] daughters run over the wall.

²³ The arches 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 [one] of Jacob; from there did the stone of Israel shepherd,

²⁵ by the God of thy father, who shall help thee, and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of the heavens above, with blessings of the deep that lies under, with blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

²⁶ The blessings of thy father were greater than the blessings of my progenitors; unto the borders of the eternal hills they shall be upon the head of Joseph and on the crown of the Nazarite of his brethren.

²⁷ Benjamin, ravening wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and in the evening he shall divide the spoil.

²⁸ All these [were] the twelve tribes of Israel, and this [is] what their father spoke unto them and blessed them; each 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 sons of Heth.

³³ And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed and expired and was gathered unto his people.: