Then he blessed Joseph and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, The God who has shepherded me throughout my life to this day,
So he said to me, ‘Adonai, before whom I’ve walked continually, will send His angel with you, and He will make your way successful, and you will take a wife for my son from my family and from my father’s household.
So he came closer and kissed him. When he smelled the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said, “Behold, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that Adonai has blessed.
So this stone which I set up as a memorial stone will become God’s House, and of everything You provide me I will definitely give a tenth of it to You.”
Now let’s get up and go up to Beth-El so that I can make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and has been with me in the way that I have gone.”
The Angel who redeemed me from all evil, May He bless the boys, and may they be called by my name, and by the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac. May they multiply to a multitude in the midst of the land.”
These are the tribes of Israel, twelve in all, and this is what their father spoke to them. He blessed them, each one he blessed with a suitable blessing.
Solomon said: “You have shown my father Your servant David great lovingkindness, as he walked before You in truth, righteousness and uprightness of heart toward You. Indeed, You have kept this great lovingkindness for him by giving him a son to sit on his throne, as it is today.
The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel—he was the firstborn, but when he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph son of Israel—so he is not reckoned as the firstborn in the genealogical record.
“Go now, gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them: ‘Adonai, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—has appeared to me, saying, I have been paying close attention to you and have seen what is done to you in Egypt.
Additionally, everyone to whom God has given riches and wealth, and empowers him to eat from it, to receive his share, and to rejoice in his labor—this is a gift of God.
They will spread them out to the sun, the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, and after which they have walked and sought, and which they have worshipped. They will not be gathered or buried, but will be like dung on the face of the ground.
For our reason for boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world, and most especially toward you, with simplicity and godly sincerity—not by human wisdom but by the grace of God.