Genesis 49

1Jacob called his sons and said, "Assemble, that I may tell you what will happen to you in the final days."

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

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

4Unstable like water, you shall not excel, because you climbed to your father's bed; then you defiled it—he climbed to my couch.

5Simeon and Levi are brothers with weapons of violence in their dwellings.

6My soul, do not enter their council; my glory, do not join their assembly, for in their anger they killed a man, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen.

7Their anger is bitterly cursed for its ferocity, and their wrath for its cruelty. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.

8Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies, your father's sons will bow down to you.

9Judah, a lion cub—from the prey, my son, you rose up; he bent low, he lay down like a lion, like a lioness. Who will awaken him?

10The rod will not depart from Judah, nor a ruler from between his feet, until Shiloh comes—and to him the obedience of the peoples.

11He binds his colt to the vine, his donkey's foal to the choice vine; he washes his garments in wine, his clothes in the blood of grapes.

12His eyes red from wine, his teeth white from milk.

13Zebulun will live by the seashore; he will be a harbor for ships, and his border will reach Sidon.

14Issachar is a sturdy donkey crouching between the sheepfolds.

15He saw that a resting place was good and that the land was pleasant. He bowed his shoulder to carry burdens and became a laborer in forced service.

16Dan will judge his people as one of Israel's tribes.

17Dan will become a serpent upon the way, an adder upon the path, the one biting a horse's heels so its rider falls backward.

18I wait for your salvation, Yahweh.

19Gad, a raiding band will raid him, but he will raid their heel.

20Asher's bread will be rich, and he will give king's delicacies.

21Naphtali is a doe sent forth, who delivers beautiful words.

22Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring whose branches run over the wall.

23The archers embittered him, shot arrows at him, and opposed him.

24His bow held firm in strength, and the arms of his hands were braced by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob—from there the shepherd, the stone of Israel.

25from the God of your father, who will help you, and by the Almighty, who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep crouching below, blessings of the breasts and womb.

26The blessings of your father surpass the blessings of my ancestors, reaching to the utmost heights of the everlasting hills. They will be on Joseph's head, on the crown of the one set apart from his brothers.

27Benjamin is a wolf who tears and eats prey in the morning and distributes plunder in the evening.

28All these are Israel's twelve tribes, and this is what their father spoke to them and blessed them, each according to his own blessing.

29He commanded them and said to them, "I am about to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that lies in the field of Ephron the Hittite."

30in the cave in the field of Machpelah, which faces Mamre in the land of Canaan, the field that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite as a burial possession.

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

32the purchase of the field and the cave that is in it from the sons of Heth.

33When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew his feet up onto the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.