endurance and willfulness, priding you as a ram of nature, defiling any modesty a concubine might have remaining.
Reuben: Am I born cursed, indelibly stained by my father's past deeds, destined to be no other way, trusting I might be blessed by my father's passing, but now cursed by his reproach, announcing God's first-born people would suffer in being sinful, chasing lustfully after pagan ones, tempted to worship their idols? Will I carry on the tradition of bowing down to the ways of others?
Jacob: My other sons also deserve blessings. Simeon and Levi, being brothers with convictions for justifying retribution, wielding weapons of violence, never let peace stand in the way of their swords. O my soul, come not into their council; O my spirit, be not joined to their company, for in their anger they slay men, and in their wantonness they hamstring oxen. 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.
Simeon: Should we consider your words a blessing, sounding it more like a curse, dishonoring our honored family, choosing a way unlikely to meet your approval. We were instruments of retribution, cleansing our tribe, removing its dishonor, determining vengeance for pollution of our sister, treating her as a concubine, wanting her to be yoked with a heathen, giving us reason to deceive pagans, believing they always threaten our unity, disrupting us from being chosen, ridiculing us for following God's law.
Levi: If we are destined to be blessed, leading our people to follow God's laws, we had to begin then, showing Him we can decide what should be done.
Jacob: Would God accept other people’s commitment to join Him, becoming members to share in His covenant, mandating their circumcision, and then condemn them to be slain, destroying them during their resulting infirmity?
Levi: God insists on our purity, never wanting us to be contaminated by worshipping pagan gods, a real threat if we mingle with the lives of others. God will always support the extermination of others who threaten our way of faith, our God who wants no other gods before Him.
Jacob: Does God also tell you to maim innocent beasts He creates, hamstringing oxen to make them useless?
Simeon: We did indeed make them useless, trusting God would approve of our action.
Jacob: How could the men you killed find useless beasts of burden worthy for anything when their masters are left in death? Would you care for needs of beasts you have maimed, hampering their ability to survive?
Levi: You must accept some stain for our deeds in Shechem, maybe not acknowledging it at the time, but now in your old age telling Joseph, I give to you, above all your brothers, one mountain slope (Shechem) which I took from the hands of the Amorites with my sword and bow.
Jacob: Attribute those words to senility, misleading you by my dementia, meaning to choose one most holy, Joseph before others, as preferred heir, rewarding his good works, comparing his virtues, with your's never matching. Simeon, you are destined to document our tribe's doings, assigning you to faithfully record God's truths, disclosed in his revelations, shown as they appear, but the scribes your seed will create are destined to fail, never accurately reporting His will. Levi, you will be chosen to father our tribe's priestly line, but they will be remembered for bringing wickedness to completion and filling up the entire measure of their father’s unholiness, without passion for the Lord, telling each, Let us bind the just one for He is profitless to us, and kill any prophet coming with good news decided by us to be heresy. Pray for visions of things to come to witness actions of your inheritors, the scribes and high priests. Woe to their soul, for they have devised an evil counsel against themselves, bringing me to bless them with division.
Bystander: Is dividing Simeon and Levi, scattering them throughout Israel, a blessing or a curse. Are they cursed to perpetuate their deceit, writing and proclaiming to satisfy other's attention, pridefully to loft their reason above the Lord's truth, wearing splendid robes, seeking only to be one with themselves? Do they know how to become one with God, never wanting them to be merely trophies, showcased in radiance of their choosing, but listening to how He wants to use them, justifying them to receive His blessings?
Jacob: God will scatter them to beyond the borders of the promised land, their home, their only school, having prepared them to be a blessing, but likely to see their purpose never fulfilled, never using their gifts after being sent out. As they scattered Joseph, sending him into a desert for training, surviving on only manna, testing his patience, removing all his longings, they destroyed his wants for any desires. Scattering Simeon and Levi could be a blessing, awakening them to use new opportunities like Joseph, circumstances established by God, but as we know now they never chose to be equipped with virtues like him. In collusion they may convince many of their integrity, but Simeon's legacy of virtue can never be for his scribes, lauding Levi's heirs, proclaiming them to be priests forever. It will be for others, simple ones, to receive the Lord's greatest revelation, to recognize good news when He sends it, never trusting the scribes and priests with His message.
Bystander: With God scattering Levi's heirs, limiting their time's usefulness, He will ordain others for His purpose, bringing them to say, I regard not my father and mother, disown my brothers and ignore my children, so they can observe His word and keep His covenant, shunning fleshly knowledge, spurning carnal relationships, seeking to be nourished by divine wisdom revealed in God's knowledge, His everlasting word. No prophet knows this now, understanding how God will use sinners to do His work.
Levi: Hearing your prophecy for us, being a blessing attenuated with a curse, can you choose one of your sons to bless with a worthy future?
Jacob: Judah deserves to be so blessed. Judah, your brothers shall praise you as I bless you now, foreseeing your hand on the neck of your enemies, your father's sons bowing down to you. Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. Stooping down, crouching as a lion, stalking as a lioness, who dares to rouse him up? With his scepter never departing, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs, Judah will reign, commanding obedience from all his subjects. Binding his colt, foal of an ass, to the vine and its begetter to the choice vine, he washes his garments in wine and his ventures in the blood of grapes, leaving his eyes washed in red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.
Simeon: Why should Judah be selected by you for praise, knowing none of his brothers have such intentions to be ruled, never by one with no greater gifts than them? Why should his blessing exceed yours for us?
Jacob: The Lord says I will bless who I will bless, apparently for His reasons, knowing His reasons are not those of ours, but coming at His discretion, suggesting I reason actions without understanding, sometimes wanting to override His decisions, choosing outcomes coming from my direction, without trusting His blessing may be for something important, some unknown event He will reveal in the future. His visions, reflecting who He will bless, remain veiled, coming with little discernment.
Bystander: Judah's heir, as the true confessor, will declare the Lord's name to his brothers, being the Lord by nature, a brother by grace, stretching out hands to unbelievers, subjecting hostile powers, calling all people who are without faith, devoting their worship to ancient deities, transfiguring unbelievers to be brothers, teaching them to be ready and eager, praising the Lord, thereby foretelling how Judah's seed is prepared to serve his brothers in proclaiming creation's goodness in His name, in leading all to realize His promises in the land.
Levi: If my heirs are to be priests, proclaiming, protecting, and perpetuating God's law, how can others such as those coming from Judah rule? God tells His chosen ones ordained to be priests, confronted by turmoil in the midst of their enemies, to sit at His right hand where He will place all foes under their feet, ordering their enemies to bow down before them. If Judah's seed rules, will we become subjects, compelled to bow down? We will never be committed to bow down to anyone. No, no one will drive us with their hands on our back. We
will always be moved by our will, driven by our trusted reason.
Simeon: As a lion's whelp, Judah may learn to roar, but will he be robed with a majestic mane, entitling him to be some king, a regal authority, expecting us to bow down to him? The Lord, ordaining kings, maybe from Judah's heirs, his stump, may nurture a shoot, raising it to become a ruler, but God has no good reason for revealing it to father, having done nothing to deserve it.
Levi: There may come a day when brothers will praise a brother, but Cain showed this is impossible and we could never desire any praise for one of us. Brothers are slow to reason any praise for brothers, needing God's spirit for that to happen.
Simeon: Jacob still gives no reason for giving Judah his highest praise, ignoring his first-born trio to bless him more, struggling us in disbelief, telling us of his days asleep to the world's doings, asking who will wake him, resurrecting him from his stupor.
Levi: Father Jacob assembles fables in his waning moments, talking about scepters, thinking a shepherd's