Chapter 49

  And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you [that] which shall befall you in the last days.  

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  Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.  

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  Reuben, thou [art] my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power:  

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  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.  

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  Simeon and Levi [are] brethren; instruments of cruelty [are in] their habitations.  

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  O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.  

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  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.  

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  Judah, thou [art he] whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand [shall be] in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee.  

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

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  The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him [shall] the gathering of the people [be].  

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  Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:  

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  His eyes [shall be] red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.  

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  Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he [shall be] for an haven of ships; and his border [shall be] unto Zidon.  

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  Issachar [is] a strong ass couching down between two burdens:  

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  And he saw that rest [was] good, and the land that [it was] pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.  

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  Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.  

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  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.  

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  I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD.  

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  Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.  

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  Out of Asher his bread [shall be] fat, and he shall yield royal dainties.  

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  Naphtali [is] a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words.  

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  Joseph [is] a fruitful bough, [even] a fruitful bough by a well; [whose] branches run over the wall:  

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  The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot [at him], and hated him:  

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  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:)  

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  [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 under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:  

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  The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto 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.  

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  Benjamin shall ravin [as] a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.  

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  All these [are] the twelve tribes of Israel: and this [is it] that their father spake unto them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.  

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  And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that [is] in the field of Ephron the Hittite,  

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  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 buryingplace.  

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  There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.  

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  The purchase of the field and of the cave that [is] therein [was] from the children of Heth.  

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  And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.  

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