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¹ And Jacob called to his sons, and said: gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the latter days.² Assemble yourselves, and hear, you sons of Jacob; And listen to Israel your father.³ Reuben, you are my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength; The pre-eminence of dignity, and the pre-eminence of power.⁴ Boiling over as water, you shall not have the pre-eminence; Because you went up to your father's bed; Then you defiled it: he went up to my couch.

⁵ Simeon and Levi are brothers; They determined to destroy violently.⁶ O my soul, don't come into their council; To their assembly, my glory, don't be united; For in their anger they slew a man, And in their self-will they hocked an ox.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, you shall your brothers praise: Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your father's sons shall bow down before you.⁹ Judah is a lion's whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up: He stooped down, he couched as a lion, And as a lioness; who shall rouse him up?¹⁰ The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes: And to him shall the obedience of the peoples be.¹¹ Binding his foal to the vine, And his donkey's colt to the choice vine; He has washed his garments in wine, And his vesture 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 a haven of ships; And his border shall be on Sidon.¹⁴ Issachar is a strong donkey, Couching down between the sheepfolds:¹⁵ And he saw a resting-place that it was good, And the land that it was pleasant; And he bowed his shoulder to bear, And became slave labor.¹⁶ Dan shall judge his people, As one of the tribes of Israel.¹⁷ Dan shall be a serpent in the way, An adder in the path, That bites the horse's heels, So that his rider falls backward.¹⁸ I have waited for your salvation, O Yahweh.¹⁹ Gad, a troop shall press on him; But he shall press on their heel.²⁰ Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, And he shall yield royal dainties.²¹ Naphtali is a hind let loose: He gives goodly words.

²² Joseph is a fruitful bough, A fruitful bough by a fountain; His branches run over the wall.²³ The archers have intensely grieved him because they shot at him, and persecuted him:²⁴ But his bow remained firm, and the arms of his hands were agile, by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, Israel's shepherd and rock,²⁵ Even by the God of your father, who shall help you, And by the Almighty, who shall bless you, With blessings of heaven above, Blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, Blessings of the breasts, and of the womb.²⁶ The blessings of your 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 brothers.²⁷ Benjamin is a wolf that ravens: In the morning he shall devour the prey, And at evening he shall divide the spoil.

²⁸ All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spoke to them and blessed them; each one, according to the blessing suitable to him, he blessed them.²⁹ And he charged them, and said to them, I am to be gathered to my relatives: 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 from Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place.³¹ there they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah:³² the field and the cave that is therein, which was purchased from the sons of Heth.³³ And when Jacob made an end of charging his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered to his people.