Genesis 49:2-10

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

³ Reuben, you are my firstborn,
    my might and the first fruits of my vigor,
    excelling in rank and excelling in power.
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!

⁵ Simeon and Levi are brothers;
    weapons of violence are their swords.
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.
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.

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.
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?
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.