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 beginning of my strength the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power

4 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

5 Simeon and Levi are brethren instruments of cruelty are in their habitations

6 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

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 in the neck of thine enemies thy father's children 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 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

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