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Jacob Blesses His Sons
1 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.
2 Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of
Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.
3 Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the
beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the
excellency 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; unto their
assembly, mine 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 in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's
children shall bow down before thee.
9 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?
10 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.
11 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:
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 an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto
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 unto 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 under,
blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
26 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.
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 that their father spake unto them, and blessed them;
every one according to his blessing he blessed them.
The Death of Jacob
29 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,
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
buryingplace.
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
therein was from the children of Heth.
49:33 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. |
Cults 
Why Did God Permit Sin?
