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, principal in dignity, and the principal in power.
4 Unstable as water, thou shalt not be principal because thou didst go up to thy father’s bed; then thou became defiled, going up to my couch.
5 Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of injustice are their weapons.
6 Let my soul not enter into their secret; nor let my honour join their assembly; for in their anger they slew a man, and in their own will they dug down a wall.
7 Cursed be their anger, which is strong, and their wrath, which is hard; 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 on the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s sons shall bow down before thee.