A reading from the book of Genesis.

Then Jacob called his sons and said,

Gather yourselves together that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come.

Assemble and listen, O sons of Jacob.

Listen to Israel, your father.

Rubin, you are my firstborn, my might and the first fruits of my strength,

preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power.

Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence,

because you went up to your father's bed.

Then you defiled it.

He went up to my couch.

Simian and Levi are brothers.

Weapons of violence are their swords.

Let my soul come not into their counsel.

Oh, my glory, be not joined to their company.

For in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen,

curse it 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.

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.

Judah is a lion's cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down,

he crouched as a lion, and as a lioness, who dares rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet,

until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

...