049:001

Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father

049:002

Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power

049:003

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

049:004

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

049:005

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

049:006

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

049:007

Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee

049:008

Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up

049:009

The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be

049:010

Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes

049:011

His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk

049:012

Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto Zidon

049:013

Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens

049:014

And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute

049:015

Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel

049:016

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

049:017

I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD

049:018

Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last

049:019

Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties

049:020

Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words

049:021

Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall

049:022

The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him

049:023

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:

049:024

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 under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb

049:025

The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto 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

049:026

Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil

049:027

All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them

049:028

And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite

049:029

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

049:030

There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah

049:031

The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth

049:032

And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people