Genesis 49

Revised Standard Version

³ Reuben, you are my first-born,
    my might, and the first fruits of my strength,
    pre-eminent in pride and pre-eminent in power.
⁴ Unstable as water, you shall not have pre-eminence
    because you went up to your father’s bed;
    then you defiled it—you^[a] went up to my couch!

⁵ Simeon and Levi are brothers;
    weapons of violence are their swords.
⁶ O my soul, come not into their council;
    O my spirit,^[b] be not joined to their company;
for in their anger they slay men,
    and in their wantonness they hamstring oxen.
⁷ Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce;
    and their wrath, for it is cruel!
I will divide them in Jacob
    and scatter them in Israel.

⁸ Judah, your brothers shall praise you;
    your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;
    your father’s sons shall bow down before you.
⁹ Judah is a lion’s whelp;
    from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He stooped down, he couched as a lion,
    and as a lioness; who dares rouse him up?
¹⁰ The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
    nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until he comes to whom it belongs;^[c]
    and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
¹¹ Binding his foal to the vine
    and his ass’s colt to the choice vine,
he washes his garments in wine
    and his vesture in the blood of grapes;
¹² his eyes shall be red with wine,
    and his teeth white with milk.

¹³ Zeb′ulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea;
    he shall become a haven for ships,
    and his border shall be at Sidon.

¹⁴ Is′sachar is a strong ass,
    crouching between the sheepfolds;
¹⁵ he saw that a resting place was good,
    and that the land was pleasant;
so he bowed his shoulder to bear,
    and became a slave at forced labor.

¹⁶ Dan shall judge his people
    as one of the tribes of Israel.
¹⁷ Dan shall be a serpent in the way,
    a viper by the path,
that bites the horse’s heels
    so that his rider falls backward.
¹⁸ I wait for thy salvation, O Lord.

¹⁹ Raiders^[d] shall raid Gad,
    but he shall raid at their heels.

²⁰ Asher’s food shall be rich,
    and he shall yield royal dainties.

²¹ Naph′tali is a hind let loose,
    that bears comely fawns.^[e]

²² Joseph is a fruitful bough,
    a fruitful bough by a spring;
    his branches run over the wall.
²³ The archers fiercely attacked him,
    shot at him, and harassed him sorely;
²⁴ yet his bow remained unmoved,
    his arms^[f] were made agile
by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob
    (by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel),
²⁵ by the God of your father who will help you,
    by God Almighty^[g] who will bless you
    with blessings of heaven above,
blessings of the deep that couches beneath,
    blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
²⁶ The blessings of your father
    are mighty beyond the blessings of the eternal mountains,^[h]
    the bounties of the everlasting hills;
may they be on the head of Joseph,
    and on the brow of him who was separate from his brothers.

²⁷ Benjamin is a ravenous wolf,
    in the morning devouring the prey,
    and at even dividing the spoil.”