1 Some time afterward, Joseph was informed, “Your father is failing.” So he took along with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.
2 When Jacob was told, “Your son Joseph has come to you,” Israel rallied his strength and sat up in bed.
3 Jacob then said to Joseph: “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessing me,
4 he said, ‘I will make you fertile and multiply you and make you into an assembly of peoples, and I will give this land to your descendants after you as a permanent possession.’
5 So now your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I joined you here, shall be mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine as much as Reuben and Simeon are mine.
6 Progeny born to you after them shall remain yours; but their heritage shall be recorded in the names of their brothers.
7 I do this because, when I was returning from Paddan, your mother Rachel died, to my sorrow, during the journey in Canaan, while we were still a short distance from Ephrath; and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath [now Bethlehem].”