¹ And Jacob called his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, and I will tell you what will befall you at the end of days.

² Assemble yourselves, and hear, ye sons of Jacob, And listen to Israel your father.

³ Reuben, thou art my firstborn, My might, and the firstfruits of my vigour: Excellency of dignity, and excellency of strength.

⁴ Impetuous as the waters, thou shalt have no pre-eminence; Because thou wentest up to thy father's couch: Then defiledst thou [it]: he went up to my bed.

⁵ Simeon and Levi are brethren: Instruments of violence their swords.

⁶ My soul, come not into their council; Mine honour, be not united with their assembly; For in their anger they slew men, And in their wantonness houghed oxen.

⁷ Cursed be their anger, for it [was] violent; And their rage, for it [was] cruel! I will divide them in Jacob, And scatter them in Israel.

⁸ Judah -- [as to] thee, thy brethren will praise thee; Thy hand will be upon the neck of thine enemies; Thy father's children will bow down to thee.

⁹ Judah is a young lion; From the prey, my son, thou art gone up. He stoopeth, he layeth himself down as a lion, And as a lioness: who will rouse him up?

¹⁰ The scepter will not depart from Judah, Nor the lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh come, And to him will be the obedience of peoples.

¹¹ He bindeth his foal to the vine, And his ass's colt to the choice vine; He washeth his dress in wine, And his garment in the blood of grapes.

¹² The eyes are red with wine, And the teeth [are] white with milk.

¹³ Zebulun will dwell at the shore of the seas; Yea, he will be at the shore of the ships, And his side [toucheth] upon Sidon.

¹⁴ Issachar is a bony ass, Crouching down between two hurdles.

¹⁵ And he saw the rest that it was good, And the land that it was pleasant; And he bowed his shoulder to bear, And was a tributary servant.

¹⁶ Dan will judge his people, As another of the tribes of Israel.

¹⁷ Dan will be a serpent on the way, A horned snake on the path, Which biteth the horse's heels, So that the rider falleth backwards.

¹⁸ I wait for thy salvation, O Jehovah.

¹⁹ Gad -- troops will rush upon him; But he will rush upon the heel.

²⁰ Out of Asher, his bread shall be fat, And he will give royal dainties.

²¹ Naphtali is a hind let loose; He giveth goodly words.

²² Joseph is a fruitful bough; A fruitful bough by a well; [His] branches shoot over the wall.

²³ The archers have provoked him, And shot at, and hated him;

²⁴ But his bow abideth firm, And the arms of his hands are supple By the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob. From thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:

²⁵ From the ùGod of thy father, and he will help thee; And from the Almighty, and he will bless thee -- With blessings of heaven from above, With blessings of the deep that lieth under, With blessings of the breast and of the womb.

²⁶ The blessings of thy father surpass the blessings of my ancestors, Unto the bounds of the everlasting hills: They shall be on the head of Joseph, And on the crown of the head of him that was separated from his brethren.

²⁷ Benjamin -- [as] a wolf will he tear to pieces; In the morning he will devour the prey, And in the evening he will divide the booty.

²⁸ All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke to them; and he blessed them: every one according to his blessing he blessed them.

²⁹ And he charged them, and said to them, I am 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 opposite to Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought of Ephron the Hittite along with the field for a possession of a sepulchre.

³¹ There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebecca 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 gathered his feet into the bed, and expired, and was gathered to his peoples.

¹ The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel (for he was the firstborn; but, because he defiled his father's couch, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph the son of Israel; and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright.

² For Judah prevailed above his brothers, and of him came the prince; but the birthright was Joseph's:)

³ the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel: Hanoch, and Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.

⁴ The sons of Joel: Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, Shimei his son,

⁵ Micah his son, Reaiah his son, Baal his son,

⁶ Beerah his son, whom Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria carried away captive: he was prince of the Reubenites.

⁷ His brothers by their families, when the genealogy of their generations was reckoned: the chief, Jeiel, and Zechariah,

⁸ and Bela the son of Azaz, the son of Shema, the son of Joel, who lived in Aroer, even to Nebo and Baal Meon:

⁹ and eastward he lived even to the entrance of the wilderness from the river Euphrates, because their livestock were multiplied in the land of Gilead.

¹⁰ In the days of Saul, they made war with the Hagrites, who fell by their hand; and they lived in their tents throughout all the [land] east of Gilead.

¹¹ The sons of Gad lived over against them, in the land of Bashan to Salecah:

¹² Joel the chief, and Shapham the second, and Janai, and Shaphat in Bashan.

¹³ Their brothers of their fathers' houses: Michael, and Meshullam, and Sheba, and Jorai, and Jacan, and Zia, and Eber, seven.

¹⁴ These were the sons of Abihail, the son of Huri, the son of Jaroah, the son of Gilead, the son of Michael, the son of Jeshishai, the son of Jahdo, the son of Buz;

¹⁵ Ahi the son of Abdiel, the son of Guni, chief of their fathers' houses.

¹⁶ They lived in Gilead in Bashan, and in its towns, and in all the suburbs of Sharon, as far as their borders.

¹⁷ All these were reckoned by genealogies in the days of Jotham king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam king of Israel.

¹⁸ The sons of Reuben, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, of valiant men, men able to bear buckler and sword, and to shoot with bow, and skillful in war, were forty-four thousand seven hundred and sixty, that were able to go forth to war.

¹⁹ They made war with the Hagrites, with Jetur, and Naphish, and Nodab.

²⁰ They were helped against them, and the Hagrites were delivered into their hand, and all who were with them; for they cried to God in the battle, and he was entreated of them, because they put their trust in him.

²¹ They took away their livestock; of their camels fifty thousand, and of sheep two hundred fifty thousand, and of donkeys two thousand, and of men one hundred thousand.

²² For there fell many slain, because the war was of God. They lived in their place until the captivity.

²³ The children of the half-tribe of Manasseh lived in the land: they increased from Bashan to Baal Hermon and Senir and Mount Hermon.

²⁴ These were the heads of their fathers' houses: even Epher, and Ishi, and Eliel, and Azriel, and Jeremiah, and Hodaviah, and Jahdiel, mighty men of valor, famous men, heads of their fathers' houses.

²⁵ They trespassed against the God of their fathers, and played the prostitute after the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God destroyed before them.

²⁶ The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.