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The First Book of Moses, Called
Genesis
CHAPTER 49. And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the days to come.
2 Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.
3 Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the first fruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity, and in power:
4 Unstable as water, thou shalt not have preeminence because thou wentest up to thy father's bed; then defiledst thou it: thou went up to my couch.
5 Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of violence are their swords.
6 O my soul, come not thou into their council; unto their assembly, my spirit, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew men, and in their selfwill they lamed oxen.
7 Cursed 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.
8 Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies; thy father's sons shall bow down before thee.
9 Judah 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 dare to rouse him up?
10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he shall come to Shiloh; and unto him shall the obedience of the people be.
11 Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washeth his garments in wine, and his robes in the blood of grapes:
12 His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.
13 Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea; and he shall become an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto Sidon.
14 Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens:
15 And he saw that a resting place was good, and the land that it was pleasant; so he bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant under forced labor.
16 Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.
17 Dan shall be a serpent in the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse's heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.
18 I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD.
19 As for Gad, a raiding troop shall overcome him: but he shall raid at their heels.
20 As for Asher his food shall be rich, and he shall provide royal dainties.
21 Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words.
22 Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall:
23 The archers have fiercely attacked him, and shot at him, and persecuted him:
24 But his bow abode in strength, and his arms were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the rock of Israel:)
25 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
26 The blessings of thy father have exceeded the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the brow of him that was separate from his brethren.
27 Benjamin is a ravenous wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.
28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them as he blessed them; every one with the blessing fit for him blessed he them.
29 And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
30 In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession as a buryingplace.
31 There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.
32 The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth.
33 And when Jacob had made an end of charging his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.
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