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And Jacob
called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves
together, that I may tell you that which shall
befall you in the last days.
02 Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye
sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your
father.
03 Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might,
and the beginning of my strength, the excellency
of dignity, and the excellency of power:
04 Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel;
because thou wentest up to thy father's bed; then
defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.
05 Simeon and Levi are brethren;
instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.
06 O my soul, come not thou into their
secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not
thou united: for in their anger they slew a man,
and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.
07 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.
08 Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren
shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of
thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow
down before thee.
09 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 an old lion; who shall
rouse him up?
10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,
nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until
Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of
the people be.
11 Binding his foal unto the vine, and his
ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washed his
garments in wine, and his clothes 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 haven of the
sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and
his border shall be unto Zidon.
14 Issachar is a strong ass couching down
between two burdens:
15 And he saw that rest was good, and the
land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder
to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.
16 Dan shall judge his people, as one of
the tribes of Israel.
17 Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an
adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels,
so that his rider shall fall backward.
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18 I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.
19 Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he
shall overcome at the last.
20 Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and
he shall yield 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 sorely grieved him, and
shot at him, and hated him:
24 But his bow abode in strength, and the
arms of his hands were made strong by the hands
of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the
shepherd, the stone 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
prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors
unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills:
they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the
crown of the head of him that was separate from
his brethren.
27 Benjamin shall ravin as a 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, and blessed them; every one according
to his blessing he blessed 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 of 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
commanding 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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