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, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken to 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 thou didst defile it : he went up to my couch.¹²

1. thou shalt...: Heb. do not thou excel
2. he went...: or, my couch is gone

⁵ Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.¹

1. instruments...: or, their swords are weapons of violence

⁶ O my soul, come not thou into their secret; to their assembly, my honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.¹

1. digged...: or, houghed oxen

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 on the neck of thy enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.

⁹ Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou hast gone up: he stooped down, he crouched 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 shall come; and to him shall be the obedience of the people.

¹¹ Binding his foal to the vine, and his donkey’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 donkey crouching 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 slave at forced labour.

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.¹

1. an adder: Heb. an arrow-snake

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:¹

1. branches: Heb. daughters

²³ The archers have bitterly attacked 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 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 beneath, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:

²⁶ The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my ancestors 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 brethren.

²⁷ Benjamin shall raven 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 which 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 drew his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered to his people.