Gen 49:1 And Ya‛aqoḇ called his sons and said, “Gather together, so that I declare to you what is to befall you in the last days:
Gen 49:2 “Gather together and hear, you sons of Ya‛aqoḇ, and listen to Yisra’ěl your father.
Gen 49:3 “Re’uḇěn, you are my first-born, my power and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of exaltation and the excellency of power.
Gen 49:4 “Boiling like water, you do not excel, because you went up to your father’s bed, then you defiled it – he went up to my couch.
Gen 49:5 “Shim‛on and Lěwi are brothers, their weapons are implements of violence.
Gen 49:6 “Let my being not enter their council, let my esteem not be united to their assembly; because they killed a man in their displeasure, and they lamed an ox in pleasure.
Gen 49:7 “Cursed be their displeasure for it is fierce, and their wrath for it is cruel! I divide them in Ya‛aqoḇ and scatter them in Yisra’ěl.
Gen 49:8 “You, Yehuḏah, your brothers praise you; your hand is on the neck of your enemies; your father’s children bow down before you.
Gen 49:9 “Yehuḏah is a lion’s cub; from the prey you have gone up, my son! He bowed down, he crouched like a lion. And like a lion, who does rouse him?
Gen 49:10 “The sceptre shall not turn aside from Yehuḏah, nor an Inscriber from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to Him is the obedience of peoples.
Gen 49:11 “Binding his donkey to the vine, and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he washed his garments in wine, and his robes in the blood of grapes.
Gen 49:12 “His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.
Gen 49:13 “Zeḇulun dwells at the seashore, he is for a haven for ships, and his border is unto Tsiḏon.
Gen 49:14 “Yissasḵar is a strong donkey lying down between two burdens,
Gen 49:15 and he saw that a resting place was good, and that the land was pleasant, and he inclined his shoulder to bear a burden, and became a subject to slave labour.
Gen 49:16 “Dan rightly rules his people as one of the tribes of Yisra’ěl.
Gen 49:17 “Dan is a serpent by the way, an adder by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider falls backward.
Gen 49:18 “I have waited for your deliverance, O יהוה!
Gen 49:19 “Gaḏ, a raiding band raids him, but he raids its heel.
Gen 49:20 “Bread from Ashěr is rich, and he gives delicacies of a sovereign.
Gen 49:21 “Naphtali is a deer let loose, he gives words of elegance.
Gen 49:22 “Yosěph is an offshoot of a fruit-bearing tree, an offshoot of a fruit-bearing tree by a fountain, his branches run over a wall.
Gen 49:23 “And the archers have bitterly grieved him, shot at him and hated him.
Gen 49:24 “But his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty One of Ya‛aqoḇ – from there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Yisra’ěl –
Gen 49:25 from the Ěl of your father who helps you, and by the Almighty who blesses you with blessings of the heavens from above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
Gen 49:26 “The blessings of your father have excelled the blessings of my ancestors, up to the limit of the everlasting hills. They are on the head of Yosěph, and on the crown of the head of him who was separated from his brothers.
Gen 49:27 “Binyamin is a wolf that tears, in the morning he eats prey, and at night he divides the spoil.”
Jacob’s Death and Burial
Gen 49:28 All these are the twelve tribes of Yisra’ěl, and this is what their father spoke to them. And he blessed them, he blessed each one according to his own blessing.
Gen 49:29 And he commanded them, and said to them, “I am to be gathered to my people, bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Ḥittite,
Gen 49:30 in the cave that is in the field of Maḵpělah, which is before Mamrě in the land of Kena‛an, which Aḇraham bought with the field of Ephron the Ḥittite as a possession for a burial-site.
Gen 49:31 There they buried Aḇraham and Sarah his wife, there they buried Yitsḥaq and Riḇqah his wife, and there I buried Lě’ah –
Gen 49:32 the field purchased, and the cave which is in it, from the sons of Ḥěth.”
Gen 49:33 And when Ya‛aqoḇ ended commanding his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed and breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.
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