| 1 | Then Jacob called his sons, and said, "Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in days to come. |
| 2 | Assemble and hear, O sons of Jacob, and hearken to Israel your father. |
| 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 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, 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; 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 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. |
| 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 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 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, 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." |
| 28 | All these are the twelve tribes of Israel; and this is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him. |
| 29 | Then he charged 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 Hittite, |
| 30 | in the cave that is in the field at Mach-pe'lah, to the east of Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place. |
| 31 | There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah -- |
| 32 | the field and the cave that is in it were purchased from the Hittites." |
| 33 | When Jacob finished charging his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed, and breathed his last, and was gathered to his people. |
| 1 | Then Joseph fell on his father's face, and wept over him, and kissed him. |
| 2 | And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel; |
| 3 | forty days were required for it, for so many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days. |
| 4 | And when the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, |
| 5 | My father made me swear, saying, `I am about to die: in my tomb which I hewed out for myself in the land of Canaan, there shall you bury me.' Now therefore let me go up, I pray you, and bury my father; then I will return." |
| 6 | And Pharaoh answered, "Go up, and bury your father, as he made you swear." |
| 7 | So Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, |
| 8 | as well as all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father's household; only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. |
| 9 | And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen; it was a very great company. |
| 10 | When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they lamented there with a very great and sorrowful lamentation; and he made a mourning for his father seven days. |
| 11 | When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning on the threshing floor of Atad, they said, "This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians." Therefore the place was named A'bel-mizraim; it is beyond the Jordan. |
| 12 | Thus his sons did for him as he had commanded them; |
| 13 | for his sons carried him to the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field at Mach-pe'lah, to the east of Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite, to possess as a burying place. |
| 14 | After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father. |
| 15 | When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil which we did to him." |
| 16 | So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, "Your father gave this command before he died, |
| 17 | `Say to Joseph, Forgive, I pray you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.' And now, we pray you, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father." Joseph wept when they spoke to him. |
| 18 | His brothers also came and fell down before him, and said, "Behold, we are your servants." |
| 19 | But Joseph said to them, "Fear not, for am I in the place of God? |
| 20 | As for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. |
| 21 | So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones." Thus he reassured them and comforted them. |
| 22 | So Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's house; and Joseph lived a hundred and ten years. |
| 23 | And Joseph saw E'phraim's children of the third generation; the children also of Machir the son of Manas'seh were born upon Joseph's knees. |
| 24 | And Joseph said to his brothers, "I am about to die; but God will visit you, and bring you up out of this land to the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." |
| 25 | Then Joseph took an oath of the sons of Israel, saying, "God will visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here." |
| 26 | So Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. |
