And Jacob called unto his sons, and said: Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the latter days.

2Assemble yourselves, and hear, ye sons of Jacob;

And hearken unto Israel your father.

3Reuben, thou art my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength;

The pre-eminence of dignity, and the pre-eminence of power.

4Boiling over as water, thou shalt not have the pre-eminence;

Because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed;

Then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.

5Simeon and Levi are brethren;

Weapons of violence are their swords.

6O my soul, come not thou into their council;

Unto their assembly, my glory, be not thou united;

For in their anger they slew a man,

And in their self-will they hocked an ox.

7Cursed 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.

8Judah, thee shall thy brethren praise:

Thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies;

Thy father’s sons shall bow down before thee.

9Judah is a lion’s whelp;

From the prey, my son, thou art gone up:

He stooped down, he couched as a lion,

And as a lioness; who shall rouse him up?

10The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,

Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,

Until Shiloh come:

And unto him shall the obedience of the peoples be.

11Binding his foal unto the vine,

And his ass’s colt unto the choice vine;

He hath washed his garments in wine,

And his vesture in the blood of grapes:

12His eyes shall be red with wine,

And his teeth white with milk.