“Reuben, you are my firstborn,(A)
    my might, the first sign of my strength,(B)
    excelling in honor,(C) excelling in power.
Turbulent as the waters,(D) you will no longer excel,
    for you went up onto your father’s bed,
    onto my couch and defiled it.(E)

“Simeon(F) and Levi(G) are brothers—
    their swords[a] are weapons of violence.(H)
Let me not enter their council,
    let me not join their assembly,(I)
for they have killed men in their anger(J)
    and hamstrung(K) oxen as they pleased.
Cursed be their anger, so fierce,
    and their fury,(L) so cruel!(M)
I will scatter them in Jacob
    and disperse them in Israel.(N)

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Footnotes

  1. Genesis 49:5 The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.

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