Genesis 49:5–33

⁵Simeon and Levi are brothers;

weapons of violence are their swords.

⁶O my soul, come not into their council;

O my spirit,^x be not joined to their company;

for in their anger they slay men,

and in their wantonness they hamstring oxen.

⁷Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce;

and their wrath, for it is cruel!

I will divide them in Jacob

and scatter them in Israel.

⁸Judah, your brothers shall praise you;

your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;

your father’s sons shall bow down before you.

⁹Judah is a lion’s whelp;

from the prey, my son, you have gone up.

He stooped down, he couched as a lion,

and as a lioness; who dares rouse him up?

¹⁰The scepter shall not depart from Judah,

nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,

until he comes to whom it belongs;^y

and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

¹¹Binding his foal to the vine

and his ass’s colt to the choice vine,

he washes 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.

¹³Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea;

he shall become a haven for ships,

and his border shall be at Sidon.

¹⁴Issachar is a strong ass,

crouching between the sheepfolds;

¹⁵he saw that a resting place was good,

and that the land was pleasant;

so he bowed his shoulder to bear,

and became a slave at forced labor.

¹⁶Dan shall judge his people

as one of the tribes of Israel.

¹⁷Dan shall be a serpent in the way,

a viper by the path,

that bites the horse’s heels

so that his rider falls backward.

¹⁸I wait for thy salvation, O Lord.

¹⁹Raiders^z shall raid Gad,

but he shall raid at their heels.

²⁰Asher’s food shall be rich,

and he shall yield royal dainties.

²¹Naphtali is a hind let loose,

that bears comely fawns.^a

²²Joseph is a fruitful bough,

a fruitful bough by a spring;

his branches run over the wall.

²³The archers fiercely attacked him,

shot at him, and harassed him sorely;

²⁴yet his bow remained unmoved,

his arms^b were made agile

by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob

(by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel),

²⁵by the God of your father who will help you,

by God Almighty^y who will bless you

with blessings of heaven above,

blessings of the deep that couches beneath,

blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

²⁶The blessings of your father

are mighty beyond the blessings of the eternal mountains,

the bounties of the everlasting hills;

may they be on the head of Joseph,

and on the brow of him who was separate from his brothers.

²⁷Benjamin is a ravenous wolf,

in the morning devouring the prey,

and at even dividing the spoil.”

²⁸All these are the twelve tribes of Israel; and this is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him. ²⁹Then he charged them, and said to them, “I am 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 at Mach-pelah, to the east of Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place. ³¹There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah— ³²the field and the cave that is in it were purchased from the Hittites.” ³³When Jacob finished charging his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed, and breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.