2. Assemble and hear, O sons of Jacob! Listen to Israel your father!
3. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength, and the firstfruit of my vigor, excelling in rank and excelling in power.
4. Unstable as water, you shall not excel any longer, for you went up upon the bed of your father, then defiled it. You went up upon my couch!
5. Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. Let me not come into their council.
6. Let not my person be joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and at their pleasure they hamstrung cattle.
7. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and I will scatter them in Israel.
8. Judah, as for you, your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. The sons of your father shall bow down to you.
9. Judah is a lion’s cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bowed down; he crouched like a lion and as a lioness. Who shall rouse him?
10. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff between his feet, until Shiloh comes. And to him shall be the obedience of nations.
11. Binding his donkey to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he washes his clothing in the wine and his garment in the blood of grapes.
12. The eyes are darker than wine, and the teeth whiter than milk.