# Genesis 49 • --- ### 1 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you which shall befall you in the last days. ### 2 Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father. ### 3 Reuben, thou my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power: ### 4 Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father's bed; then defiledst thou he went up to my couch. ### 5 Simeon and Levi brethren; instruments of cruelty their habitations. ### 6 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. ### 7 Cursed their anger, for fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. ### 8 Judah, thou whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee. ### 9 Judah 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? ### 10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him the gathering of the people ### 11 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: ### 12 His eyes red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. ### 13 Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he for an haven of ships; and his border unto Zidon. ### 14 Issachar a strong ass couching down between two burdens: ### 15 And he saw that rest good, and the land that pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute. ### 16 Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. ### 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. ### 18 I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord. ### 19 Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last. ### 20 Out of Asher his bread fat, and he shall yield royal dainties. ### 21 Naphtali a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words. ### 22 Joseph a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well; branches run over the wall: ### 23 The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot and hated him: ### 24 But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty of Jacob; (from thence the shepherd, the stone of Israel:) ### 25 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: ### 26 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. ### 27 Benjamin shall ravin a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil. ### 28 All these the twelve tribes of Israel: and this that their father spake unto them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them. ### 29 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 in the field of Ephron the Hittite, ### 30 In the cave that in the field of Machpelah, which before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a buryingplace. ### 31 There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah. ### 32 The purchase of the field and of the cave that therein from the children of Heth. ### 33 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.