The Holy Bible · Genesis

Genesis 49

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1Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather together, so I may tell you what will befall you in the latter days.”

2“Gather and listen, sons of Jacob;
listen to Israel your father.”

3“Reuben, my firstborn,
you are my strength and the beginning of my children,
hard to bear and stubbornly self-willed.”

4“You overflowed in insolence like water; do not boil over,
for you went up to your father’s bed;
then you defiled the couch where you went up.”

5“Simeon and Levi are brothers;
they carried out injustice by their own choice.”

6“Let my soul not enter their council;
let my inward being not rest upon their conspiracy.
In their wrath they killed men,
and in their desire they hamstrung a bull.”

7“Cursed be their wrath, for it was self-willed,
and their anger, for it was hardened.
I will divide them in Jacob
and scatter them in Israel.”

8“Judah, may your brothers praise you;
your hands will be on your enemies’ backs;
your father’s sons will bow before you.”

9“Judah is a lion’s cub.
From a shoot, my son, you have gone up.
You reclined and slept like a lion, like a cub;
who will rouse him?”

10“A ruler will not fail from Judah,
nor a leader from his thighs,
until the things reserved for him come;
he will be the expectation of nations.”

11“Binding his foal to the vine,
his donkey’s colt to the tendril,
he will wash his robe in wine,
his mantle in the blood of the grape.”

12“His eyes are joyful from wine,
and his teeth are whiter than milk.”

13“Zebulun will dwell by the sea,
beside a haven for ships,
and extend as far as Sidon.”

14“Issachar desired what is good,
resting between the inheritances.”

15“He saw that rest was good
and the land fertile.
He bent his shoulder to labor
and became a tiller of the soil.”

16“Dan will judge his people
as one of the tribes of Israel.”

17“Let Dan be a serpent by the road,
lying in wait by the path,
biting a horse’s heel
and its rider will fall backward.”

18“I wait for the Lord’s salvation.”

19“Gad, a raiding band will raid him,
but he will raid at their heels.”

20“Asher’s bread is rich,
and he will provide delicacies for rulers.”

21“Naphtali is a spreading tree,
yielding beauty in its fruit.”

22“Joseph is a grown son,
a grown son, envied;
my youngest son, return to me.”

23“They plotted against him and reviled him;
the archers pressed him hard.”

24“Their bows were powerfully shattered,
and the sinews of their arms grew slack
by the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob;
from there is the One who strengthened Israel,”

25“from the God of your father;
my God helped you and blessed you
with a blessing of heaven above
and a blessing of the earth that holds all things,
because of a blessing of breasts and womb,”

26“a blessing of your father and your mother;
it has prevailed over the blessings of lasting mountains
and the blessings of everlasting dunes.
They will rest on Joseph’s head
and on the crown of the brothers whom he led.”

27“Benjamin is a ravenous wolf;
in the morning he will still eat,
and toward evening he will distribute food.”

28All these are Jacob’s twelve sons. Their father spoke these things to them and blessed them, blessing each according to his blessing.

29He said to them, “I am about to be added to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite,”

30“in the double cave opposite Mamre in Canaan, the cave Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite as a burial holding.”

31“There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah; there they buried Isaac and his wife Rebekah; and there I buried Leah,”

32“in the holding of the field and the cave in it, acquired from the sons of Heth.”

33When Jacob finished charging his sons, he raised his feet onto the bed, expired, and was added to his people.

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Read this chapter with the Hebrew and Greek compared →

Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · working draft awaiting specialist review.