8
Then Isra'el noticed Yosef's sons and asked, "Whose are these?"
9
Yosef answered his father, "They are my sons, whom God has given me here." Ya'akov replied, "I want you to bring them here to me, so that I can bless them."
10
Now Isra'el's eyes were dim with age, so that he could not see. Yosef brought his sons near to him, and he kissed them and embraced them.
11
Isra'el said to Yosef, "I never expected to see even you again, but God has allowed me to see your children too!"
12
Yosef brought them out from between his legs and prostrated himself on the ground.
13
Then Yosef took them both, Efrayim in his right hand toward Isra'el's left hand and M'nasheh in his left hand toward Isra'el's right hand, and brought them near to him.
14
But Isra'el put out his right hand and laid it on the head of the younger one, Efrayim, and put his left hand on the head of M'nasheh - he intentionally crossed his hands, even though M'nasheh was the firstborn.
15
Then he blessed Yosef: "The God in whose presence my fathers Avraham and Yitz'chak lived, the God who has been my own shepherd all my life long to this day,
16
the angel who has rescued me from all harm, bless these boys. May they remember who I am and what I stand for, and likewise my fathers Avraham and Yitz'chak, who they were and what they stood for. And may they grow into teeming multitudes on the earth."
17
When Yosef saw that his father was laying his right hand on Efrayim's head, it displeased him, and he lifted up his father's hand to remove it from Efrayim's head and place it instead on M'nasheh's head.
18
Yosef said to his father, "Don't do it that way, my father; for this one is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head."