1 Some time later Joseph was told, "Your father is ill." So he went, taking his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim with him.
2 When Jacob was told, "Your son Joseph has come to see you," Israel gathered his strength and sat up in bed.
3 Jacob said to Joseph, "God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me.
4 He said to me, 'I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers; I will make you a company of peoples, and I will give this land to your seed after you as a possession for all time.'
5 Now then, your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you here in Egypt are mine. Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are.
6 Any children you father after them will be yours; in their inheritance they will be listed under the names of their brothers.
7 As for me, when I was coming from Paddan, Rachel died, to my sorrow, in the land of Canaan while we were still on the way, some distance from Ephrath. I buried her there beside the road to Ephrath," that is, Bethlehem.
8 When Israel noticed Joseph's sons, he asked, "Who are these?"
9 "They are my sons, whom God has given me here," Joseph said to his father. Israel said, "Bring them to me, so that I may bless them."
10 Israel's eyes had grown heavy with age, and he could not see. Joseph brought them up close to him, and he kissed them and hugged them.
11 Israel said to Joseph, "I never thought I would see your face again, and now God has let me see your seed as well!"
12 Joseph took them from between his father's knees and bowed down with his face to the ground.
13 Then Joseph took the two of them, Ephraim with his right hand, toward Israel's left, and Manasseh with his left hand, toward Israel's right, and brought them close to him.
14 But Israel reached out his right hand and put it on the head of Ephraim, though he was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh's head; he crossed his hands on purpose, although Manasseh was the firstborn.
15 Then he blessed Joseph, saying, "May the God in whose presence my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has shepherded me all my life up to this day,
16 the Angel who has redeemed me from every harm, bless these boys. May my name live on in them, and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they increase into a great multitude on the earth."
17 Joseph saw that his father had put his right hand on Ephraim's head, and it displeased him. So he took hold of his father's hand to shift it from Ephraim's head onto Manasseh's head.
18 Joseph said to his father, "Not that way, my father! This one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head."
19 But his father would not. "I know, my son, I know," he said. "He too will become a people, and he too will be great. Yet his younger brother will be greater than he is, and his seed will become a whole host of nations."
20 So he blessed them that day, saying, "By you Israel will pronounce blessings, saying, 'May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.'" So he set Ephraim ahead of Manasseh.
21 Then Israel said to Joseph, "I am about to die, but God will be with you all and will bring you back to the land of your fathers.
22 And to you, over and above your brothers, I have given one portion, which I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and my bow."