¹ And Jacob called to his sons, and said, Assemble yourselves, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.

² Assemble yourselves, and hear, ye sons of Jacob: and hearken to Israel your father.

³ Reuben, thou art my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellence of dignity, and the excellence 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; to their assembly, my honor, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will 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 on the neck of thy enemies: thy father's children shall bow down before thee.

⁹ Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, thou hast gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion: who shall rouse him up?

¹⁰ The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh shall come: and to him shall be the gathering of the people.

¹¹ Binding his foal to the vine, and his ass's colt to 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 a haven of ships; and his border shall be to 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 to 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 beneath, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:

²⁶ The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors to 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 raven 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 which their father spoke to them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.

²⁹ And 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 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 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 purchase of the field and of the cave that is in it, was from the children of Heth.

³³ And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he drew his feet into the bed, and expired, and was gathered to his people.

¹ Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.

² Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her. He took her, lay with her, and humbled her.

³ His soul joined to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the young lady, and spoke kindly to the young lady.

⁴ Shechem spoke to his father, Hamor, saying, "Get me this young lady as a wife."

⁵ Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah, his daughter; and his sons were with his livestock in the field. Jacob held his peace until they came.

⁶ Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to talk with him.

⁷ The sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it. The men were grieved, and they were very angry, because he had done folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter; a which thing ought not to be done.

⁸ Hamor talked with them, saying, "The soul of my son, Shechem, longs for your daughter. Please give her to him as a wife.

⁹ Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves.

¹⁰ You shall dwell with us, and the land will be before you. Live and trade in it, and get possessions in it."

¹¹ Shechem said to her father and to her brothers, "Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you will tell me I will give.

¹² Ask me a great amount for a dowry, and I will give whatever you ask of me, but give me the young lady as a wife."

¹³ The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father with deceit, and spoke, because he had defiled Dinah their sister,

¹⁴ and said to them, "We can't do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised; for that is a reproach to us.

¹⁵ Only on this condition will we consent to you. If you will be as we are, that every male of you be circumcised;

¹⁶ then will we give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people.

¹⁷ But if you will not listen to us, to be circumcised, then we will take our sister, and we will be gone."

¹⁸ Their words pleased Hamor and Shechem, Hamor's son.

¹⁹ The young man didn't wait to do this thing, because he had delight in Jacob's daughter, and he was honored above all the house of his father.

²⁰ Hamor and Shechem, his son, came to the gate of their city, and talked with the men of their city, saying,

²¹ "These men are peaceful with us. Therefore let them live in the land and trade in it. For behold, the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters.

²² Only on this condition will the men consent to us to live with us, to become one people, if every male among us is circumcised, as they are circumcised.

²³ Won't their livestock and their possessions and all their animals be ours? Only let us give our consent to them, and they will dwell with us."

²⁴ All who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor, and to Shechem his son; and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city.

²⁵ It happened on the third day, when they were sore, that two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, each took his sword, came upon the unsuspecting city, and killed all the males.

²⁶ They killed Hamor and Shechem, his son, with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went away.

²⁷ Jacob's sons came on the dead, and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister.

²⁸ They took their flocks, their herds, their donkeys, that which was in the city, that which was in the field,

²⁹ and all their wealth. They took captive all their little ones and their wives, and took as plunder everything that was in the house.

³⁰ Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have troubled me, to make me odious to the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am few in number. They will gather themselves together against me and strike me, and I will be destroyed, I and my house."

³¹ They said, "Should he deal with our sister as with a prostitute?"