1Then Jacob called to his sons and said, “Gather together, that I may tell you what will happen to you in the days to come.
2Assemble and hear, O sons of Jacob; listen to Israel your father.
3Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the firstfruits of my vigor, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power.
4Turbulent as water, you shall not have preeminence, for you went up onto your father’s bed; then you defiled it—he went up onto my couch.
5Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords.
6Into their council let my self not come; into their assembly let my glory not be united; for in their anger they killed a man, and at their pleasure they hamstrung an ox.
7Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their fury, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.
8Judah, you—your brothers will praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons will bow down to you.
9Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches, he lies down like a lion, and like a lioness—who dares rouse him?
10The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes—and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
11Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he washes his garment in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes.
12His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.
13Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the seas; he shall be at the shore of ships, and his flank shall be toward Sidon.
14Issachar is a bony donkey, crouching between the sheepfolds.
15He saw that a resting place was good and that the land was pleasant, so he bent his shoulder to bear a burden and became a slave at forced labor.
16Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel.
17Dan shall be a serpent on the road, a viper on the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider falls backward.
18For your salvation I wait, O Yahweh.
19Gad—raiders will raid him, but he will raid at their heel.
20From Asher his food shall be rich, and he shall provide delicacies fit for a king.
21Naphtali is a doe let loose, that gives beautiful words.
22Joseph is a fruitful son, a fruitful son by a spring; its branches run over a wall.
23The archers bitterly attacked him; they shot at him and harassed him.
24Yet his bow remained steady, and his arms were made agile, by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob—from there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel—
25by 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 that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and the womb.
26The blessings of your father have prevailed over the blessings of my forebears, to the bounty of the everlasting hills. May they be on the head of Joseph, on the crown of the head of the one set apart from his brothers.
27Benjamin is a wolf that tears prey; in the morning he devours the spoil, and in the evening he divides the plunder.
28All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke to them when he blessed them; he blessed each one according to his blessing.
29Then he commanded them and said to them, “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers, in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
30in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which faces Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought—the field—from Ephron the Hittite as a burial possession.
31There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; 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 into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.
Open in the interactive reader →Where this passage connects across Scripture — each link typed and reasoned, part of the AIT Bible Nexus Chart.