Genesis 48:1-10 ▼

1 Later Joseph was told, |Your father is ill.| So he took his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim [to see Jacob].

2 When Jacob was told, |Your son Joseph is here to see you,| Israel gathered his strength and sat up in bed.

3 Jacob said to Joseph, |God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in Canaan and blessed me.

4 He said to me, 'I will make you fertile and increase the number of your descendants so that you will become a community of people. I will give this land to your descendants as a permanent possession.'

5 |So your two sons, who were born in Egypt before I came here, are my sons. Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine just as Reuben and Simeon are.

6 Any other children you have after them will be yours. They will inherit the land listed under their brothers' names.

7 As I was coming back from Paddan, Rachel died in Canaan when we were still some distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there on the way to Ephrath| (that is, Bethlehem).

8 When Israel saw Joseph's sons, he asked, |Who are they?|

9 |They are my sons, whom God has given me here in Egypt,| Joseph answered his father. Then Israel said, |Please bring them to me so that I may bless them.|

10 Israel's eyesight was failing because of old age, and he could hardly see. So Joseph brought his sons close to his father, and Israel hugged them and kissed them.