Genesis 49:1-10 ▼

1 Then Jacob called his sons, and said: “Gather around, that I may tell you what will happen to you in days to come.

2 Assemble and hear, O sons of Jacob; listen to Israel your father.

3 Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the first fruits of my vigor, excelling in rank and excelling in power.

4 Unstable as water, you shall no longer excel because you went up onto your father’s bed; then you defiled it—you went up onto my couch!

5 Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords.

6 May I never come into their council; may I not be joined to their company— for in their anger they killed men, and at their whim they hamstrung 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 crouches down, he stretches out like a lion, like 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 tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his.