Daily Text and Bible Reading: Friday, January 17 [Press play below]

49.1 And Jacob called his sons and said: “Gather yourselves together that I may tell you what will happen to you in the final part of the days.
49.2 Assemble yourselves and listen, you sons of Jacob, yes, listen to Israel your father.
49.3 “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my vigor and the beginning of my procreative power, the excellence of dignity and the excellence of strength.
49.4 With recklessness like turbulent waters, you will not excel, because you have gone up to your father’s bed. At that time you defiled my bed. He actually went on to it!
49.5 “Simeon and Levi are brothers. Instruments of violence are their slaughter weapons.
49.6 Into their company do not come, O my soul. With their assembly do not join, O my honor, because in their anger they killed men, and for their pleasure they hamstrung bulls.
49.7 Cursed be their anger, because it is cruel, and their fury, because it is harsh. Let me disperse them in Jacob, and let me scatter them in Israel.
49.8 “As for you, Judah, your brothers will praise you. Your hand will be on the neck of your enemies. The sons of your father will bow down before you.
49.9 Judah is a lion cub. From the prey, my son, you will certainly go up. He has crouched down and stretched himself out like a lion, and like a lion, who dares rouse him?
49.10 The scepter will not depart from Judah, neither the commander’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him the obedience of the peoples will belong.
49.11 Tying his donkey to a vine and his donkey’s colt to a choice vine, he will wash his clothing in wine and his garment in the blood of grapes.
49.12 Dark red are his eyes from wine, and his teeth are white from milk.
49.13 “Zebulun will reside by the seashore, by the shore where the ships lie anchored, and his remote border will be toward Sidon.
49.14 “Issachar is a strong-boned donkey, lying down between the two saddlebags.
49.15 And he will see that the resting-place is good and that the land is pleasant. He will bend his shoulder to bear the burden and will submit to forced labor.
49.16 “Dan will judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel.
49.17 Let Dan be a serpent by the roadside, a horned snake beside the path, that bites the heels of the horse so that its rider falls backward.
49.18 I will wait for salvation from you, O Jehovah.
49.19 “As for Gad, a marauder band will raid him, but he will raid at their heels.
49.20 “Asher’s bread will be abundant, and he will provide food fit for a king.
49.21 “Naphtali is a slender doe. He is speaking words of elegance.
49.22 “Joseph is the offshoot of a fruitful tree, a fruitful tree by a spring, whose branches extend over the wall.
49.23 But the archers kept harassing him and shot at him and kept harboring animosity against him.
49.24 And yet his bow remained in place, and his hands stayed strong and agile. This was from the hands of the powerful one of Jacob, from the shepherd, the stone of Israel.
49.25 He is from the God of your father, and he will help you, and he is with the Almighty, and he will bless you with the blessings of the heavens above, with the blessings of the deep below, with the blessings of the breasts and womb.
49.26 The blessings of your father will be superior to the blessings of the eternal mountains, to the desirable things of the enduring hills. They will continue upon the head of Joseph, upon the crown of the head of the one singled out from his brothers.
49.27 “Benjamin will keep on tearing like a wolf. In the morning he will eat the prey, and in the evening he will divide spoil.”
49.28 All of these are the 12 tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he was blessing them. He gave each of them an appropriate blessing.
49.29 After that he gave these commands to them: “I am being gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
49.30 the cave in the field of Machpelah in front of Mamre in the land of Canaan, the field that Abraham purchased from Ephron the Hittite as a property for a burial place.
49.31 There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah. There they buried Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and there I buried Leah.
49.32 The field and the cave that is in it were purchased from the sons of Heth.”
49.33 Thus Jacob finished giving these instructions to his sons. Then he drew his feet up onto the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.
50.1 Joseph then threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him.
50.2 After that Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel,
50.3 and they took the full 40 days for him, for this is the full period for the embalming, and the Egyptians continued to shed tears for him 70 days.
50.4 When the days of mourning for him passed, Joseph spoke to Pharaoh’s court, saying: “If I have found favor in your eyes, give this message to Pharaoh:
50.5 ‘My father made me swear, saying: “Look! I am dying. You are to bury me in my burial place, which I have excavated in the land of Canaan.” Please, let me go up and bury my father, after which I will return.’”
50.6 Pharaoh replied: “Go and bury your father just as he made you swear.”
50.7 So Joseph went up to bury his father, and all of Pharaoh’s servants went with him, the elders of his court and all the elders of the land of Egypt
50.8 and all of Joseph’s household and his brothers and the household of his father. Only their little children and their flocks and their herds they left in the land of Goshen.
50.9 Chariots and horsemen also went up with him, and the camp was very numerous.
50.10 Then they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is in the region of the Jordan, and there they carried on a very great and bitter mourning, and he kept mourning for his father seven days.
50.11 The inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw them mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, and they exclaimed: “This is a great mourning for the Egyptians!” That is why it was named Abel-mizraim, which is in the region of the Jordan.
50.12 So his sons did for him exactly as he had instructed them.
50.13 His sons carried him into the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, the field in front of Mamre that Abraham had purchased from Ephron the Hittite as property for a burial place.
50.14 After he buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all those who had gone with him to bury his father.
50.15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said: “It may be that Joseph is harboring animosity against us and that he will repay us for all the evil that we did to him.”
50.16 So they sent a message to Joseph in these words: “Your father gave this command before his death:
50.17 ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: “I beg you, please pardon the transgression of your brothers and the sin they committed in bringing such harm to you.”’ Now, please, pardon the transgression of the servants of your father’s God.” And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.
50.18 Then his brothers also came and fell down before him and said: “Here we are as slaves to you!”
50.19 Joseph said to them: “Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God?
50.20 Although you meant to harm me, God intended it to turn out well and to preserve many people alive, as he is doing today.
50.21 So now do not be afraid. I will keep supplying you and your little children with food.” Thus he comforted them and spoke reassuringly to them.
50.22 And Joseph continued to dwell in Egypt, he and the household of his father, and Joseph lived for 110 years.
50.23 Joseph saw the third generation of Ephraim’s sons, also the sons of Machir, Manasseh’s son. They were born upon Joseph’s knees.
50.24 At length Joseph said to his brothers: “I am dying, but God will without fail turn his attention to you, and he will certainly bring you up out of this land to the land about which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”
50.25 So Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying: “God will without fail turn his attention to you. You must take my bones up out of here.”
50.26 And Joseph died at the age of 110, and they had him embalmed, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.