t12papocrypha
Testament of Judah 1
Judah gathers his sons to receive his final words, opening with the account of his birth and the thanksgiving his mother offered to Jehovah at his naming. He recounts a youth marked by swiftness, obedience to Jacob, and honor toward his mother and her sister. The chapter closes on Jacob's prophetic blessing over Judah: that he would be a king and prosperous in all things — a word that reaches forward beyond Judah himself into the royal line his tribe would carry, culminating in the King of kings who descends through that lineage.
1
The copy of the words of Judah, what things he spake to his sons before he died. They gathered themselves together, and came to him, and he said to them: I was the fourth son born to my father, and my mother called me Judah, saying, I give thanks to the Lord, because He hath given to me even a fourth son. I was swift and active in my youth, and obedient to my father in everything. And I honoured my mother and my mother’s sister. And it came to pass, when I became a man, that my father Jacob prayed over me, saying, Thou shalt be a king, and prosperous in all things.
