“Ah, the smell of my son
    is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed.^(A)
28 May God give you of the dew of heaven
    and of the fatness of the earth
    and plenty of grain and wine.^(B)
29 Let peoples serve you
    and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
    and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
    and blessed be everyone who blesses you!”^(C)

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.^(A)
4 Unstable as water, you shall no longer excel
    because you went up onto your father’s bed;
    then you defiled it—you^[a] went up onto my couch!^(B)

⁵ Simeon and Levi are brothers;
    weapons of violence are their swords.^(C)
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.^(D)
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.^(E)

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.^(F)
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?^(G)
10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
    nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him,^[b]
    and the obedience of the peoples is his.^(H)
11 Binding his foal to the vine
    and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
he washes his garments in wine
    and his robe in the blood of grapes;
¹² his eyes are darker than wine
    and his teeth whiter than milk.

¹³ Zebulun shall settle at the shore of the sea;
    he shall be a haven for ships,
    and his border shall be at Sidon.^(I)

¹⁴ Issachar is a strong donkey,
    lying down between the sheepfolds;
¹⁵ he saw that a resting place was good
    and that the land was pleasant,
so he bowed his shoulder to the burden
    and became a slave at forced labor.

¹⁶ Dan shall judge his people
    as one of the tribes of Israel.^(J)
17 Dan shall be a snake by the roadside,
    a viper along the path,
that bites the horse’s heels
    so that its rider falls backward.^(K)

¹⁸ I wait for your salvation, O Lord.^(L)

¹⁹ Gad shall be raided by raiders,
    but he shall raid at their heels.^(M)

²⁰ Asher’s^[c] food shall be rich,
    and he shall provide royal delicacies.^(N)

²¹ Naphtali is a doe let loose
    that bears lovely fawns.^[d](O)

²² Joseph is a fruitful bough,^[e]
    a fruitful bough by a spring;
    his branches run over the wall.^[f](P)
23 The archers fiercely attacked him;
    they shot at him and pressed him hard.^(Q)
24 Yet his bow remained taut,
    and his arms^[g] were made agile
by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob,
    by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,^(R)
25 by the God of your father, who will help you,
    by the Almighty^[h] who will bless you
    with blessings of heaven above,
blessings of the deep that lies beneath,
    blessings of the breasts and of the womb.^(S)
26 The blessings of your father
    are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains,
    the bounties^[i] of the everlasting hills;
may they be on the head of Joseph,
    on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.^(T)

²⁷ Benjamin is a ravenous wolf,
    in the morning devouring the prey
    and at evening dividing the spoil.”