49:1 And Jacob called to his sons, and said, Assemble
yourselves, that I may tell you [that] which shall befall you
in the last days.
49:2 Assemble yourselves, and hear, ye sons of Jacob: and
hearken to Israel your father.
49:3 Reuben, thou [art] my first-born, my might, and the
beginning of my strength, the excellence of dignity, and the
excellence of power:
49:4 Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou
wentest up to thy father's bed; then defiledst thou [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 honor, be not thou united: for in their anger they
slew a man, and in their self-will 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 father's
children shall bow down before thee.
49:9 Judah [is] a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, thou hast
gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old
lion: who shall rouse him up?
49:10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver
from between his feet, until Shiloh shall come: and to him
[shall be] the gathering of the people.
49:11 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:
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 a haven of ships; and his border [shall be] to Zidon.
49:14 Issachar [is] a strong ass, couching 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
servant to tribute.
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 sorely grieved 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 thence [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 progenitors 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
burying-place.
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 expired, and was gathered to
his people.
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