49:1 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.
49:2 Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken to Israel your father.
49:3 Reuben, thou [art] my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power:
49:4 Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy fathers bed; then thou didst defile [it]: he went up to my couch.
49:5 Simeon and Levi [are] brethren; instruments of cruelty [are in] their habitations.
49:6 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.
49:7 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.
49:8 Judah, thou [art he] whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand [shall be] on the neck of thy enemies; thy fathers children shall bow down before thee.
49:9 Judah [is] a lions 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?
49:10 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.
49:11 Binding his foal to the vine, and his donkeys colt to the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:
49:12 His eyes [shall be] red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.
49:13 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.
49:14 Issachar [is] a strong donkey crouching down between two burdens:
49:15 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.
49:16 Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.
49:17 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.
49:18 I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD.
49:19 Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.
49:20 Out of Asher his bread [shall be] fat, and he shall yield royal dainties.
49:21 Naphtali [is] a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words.
49:22 Joseph [is] a fruitful bough, [even] a fruitful bough by a well; [whose] branches run over the wall:
49:23 The archers have bitterly attacked him, and shot [at him], and hated him:
49:24 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:)
49:25 [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:
49:26 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.
49:27 Benjamin shall raven [as] a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.
49:28 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.
49:29 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,
49:30 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.
49:31 There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.
49:32 The purchase of the field and of the cave that [is] in it [was] from the children of Heth.
49:33 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.