⁵“So your two sons, who were born in Egypt before I came here, are my sons. Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine just as Reuben and Simeon are. ⁶Any other children you have after them will be yours. They will inherit the land listed under their brothers’ names. ⁷As I was coming back from Paddan, Rachel died in Canaan when we were still some distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there on the way to Ephrath” (that is, Bethlehem).

⁸When Israel saw Joseph’s sons, he asked, “Who are they?”

⁹“They are my sons, whom God has given me here in Egypt,” Joseph answered his father.

Then Israel said, “Please bring them to me so that I may bless them.”

¹⁰Israel’s eyesight was failing because of old age, and he could hardly see. So Joseph brought his sons close to his father, and Israel hugged them and kissed them.

¹¹Israel said to Joseph, “I never expected to see you again, and now God has even let me see your sons.”

¹²Joseph took them off his father’s lap and bowed with his face touching the ground. ¹³Then Joseph took both of them, Ephraim on his right, facing Israel’s left, and Manasseh on his left, facing Israel’s right, and brought them close to him. ¹⁴But Israel crossed his hands and reached out. He put his right hand on Ephraim’s head, although Ephraim was the younger son. He put his left hand on Manasseh’s head, although Manasseh was older.

¹⁵Then Jacob blessed Joseph,

“May God, in whose presence my grandfather Abraham

and my father Isaac walked,

may God, who has been my shepherd all my life to this very day,

¹⁶may the Messenger, who has rescued me from all evil,

bless these boys.

May they be called by my name

and by the names of my grandfather Abraham and my father Isaac.

May they have many children on the earth.”

¹⁷When Joseph saw that his father had put his right hand on Ephraim’s head, he didn’t like it. So he took his father’s hand in order to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s. ¹⁸Then he said to his father, “That’s not right, Father! This is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head.”

¹⁹His father refused and said, “I know, Son, I know! Manasseh, too, will become a nation, and he, too, will be important. Nevertheless, his younger brother will be more important than he, and his descendants will become many nations.”

²⁰That day he blessed them. He said,

“Because of you, Israel will speak this blessing,

‘May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh!’ ”

In this way Israel put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh.

Read in Logos