1 Then Jacob called for his sons and said, "Gather around, and I will tell you what will happen to you in the days to come.
2 Come together and hear, you sons of Jacob; hear what Israel your father says.
3 Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength and the first fruit of my vigor, foremost in rank and foremost in power.
4 Turbulent as water, you will not be foremost, for you climbed into your father's bed; you defiled it then. He climbed onto my couch!
5 Simeon and Levi are brothers; their blades are weapons of violence.
6 Into their council may my soul never enter; with their company may my glory never unite. For in their anger they slew men, and at their whim they hamstrung oxen.
7 Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel! I will divide them up in Jacob and scatter them throughout Israel.
8 Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies; your father's sons will bow down before you.
9 A lion's whelp is Judah; from the prey, my son, you have come up. He stoops down, he crouches like a lion, like a lioness; who will dare to rouse him?
10 The scepter will not pass from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and the peoples will render him obedience.
11 He tethers his foal to the vine, his donkey's colt to the choicest vine; he washes his clothing in wine, his robe in the blood of grapes.
12 His eyes are dark with wine, and his teeth are white with milk.
13 Zebulun will live by the seashore; he will be a harbor for ships, and his border will reach to Sidon.
14 Issachar is a sturdy donkey, lying down between the sheepfolds.
15 He saw how good a resting place was and how pleasant the land, and he bent his shoulder to the load and submitted to forced labor.
16 Dan will provide justice for his people as one of the tribes of Israel.
17 Dan will be a snake beside the road, a viper along the path, that bites at the horse's heels so that its rider tumbles backward.
18 For your salvation I wait, O LORD.
19 Gad will be raided by raiders, but he will raid them at their heels.
20 Asher's food will be rich; he will provide delicacies fit for a king.
21 Naphtali is a doe set free, bringing forth lovely words.
22 Joseph is a fruitful branch, a fruitful branch beside a spring, whose shoots climb over the wall.
23 Archers provoked him bitterly; they shot at him and pursued him with hostility.
24 But his bow stayed firm, and his arms were kept nimble by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, from where the Shepherd comes, the Stone of Israel;
25 by the God of your father, who helps you, and by the Almighty, who blesses you with blessings of the heavens above, blessings of the deep that crouches below, blessings of breast and womb.
26 Your father's blessings surpass the blessings of my forebears, up to the farthest bounds of the age-old hills. May they rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the one set apart from his brothers.
27 Benjamin is a wolf that tears its prey; in the morning he devours what he has seized, and in the evening he divides the plunder."
28 These are all the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them as he blessed them, giving each one the blessing appropriate to him.
29 Then he gave them his instructions: "I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
30 the cave in the field of Machpelah, facing Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site of his own.
31 Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried there, Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried there, and there I buried Leah.
32 The field and the cave in it were bought from the sons of Heth."
33 When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up onto the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.