Bible in 90 Days

17 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, God appeared to him and told him, “I am the Almighty; obey me and live as you should. ^2-4 I will prepare a contract between us, guaranteeing to make you into a mighty nation. In fact you shall be the father of not only one nation, but a multitude of nations!” Abram fell face downward in the dust as God talked with him.

⁵ “What’s more,” God told him, “I am changing your name. It is no longer ‘Abram’ (‘Exalted Father’), but ‘Abraham’ (‘Father of Nations’)—for that is what you will be. I have declared it. ⁶ I will give you millions of descendants who will form many nations! Kings shall be among your descendants! ^7-8 And I will continue this agreement between us generation after generation, forever, for it shall be between me and your children as well. It is a contract that I shall be your God and the God of your posterity. And I will give all this land of Canaan to you and them, forever. And I will be your God.

^9-10 “Your part of the contract,” God told him, “is to obey its terms. You personally and all your posterity have this continual responsibility: that every male among you shall be circumcised; ¹¹ the foreskin of his penis shall be cut off. This will be the proof that you and they accept this covenant. ¹² Every male shall be circumcised on the eighth day after birth. This applies to every foreign-born slave as well as to everyone born in your household. This is a permanent part of this contract, and it applies to all your posterity. ¹³ All must be circumcised. Your bodies will thus be marked as participants in my everlasting covenant. ¹⁴ Anyone who refuses these terms shall be cut off from his people; for he has violated my contract.”

¹⁵ Then God added, “Regarding Sarai your wife—her name is no longer ‘Sarai’ but ‘Sarah’ (‘Princess’). ¹⁶ And I will bless her and give you a son from her! Yes, I will bless her richly, and make her the mother of nations! Many kings shall be among your posterity.”

¹⁷ Then Abraham threw himself down in worship before the Lord, but inside he was laughing in disbelief!^[a] “Me, be a father?” he said in amusement. “Me—100 years old? And Sarah, to have a baby at 90?”

¹⁸ And Abraham said to God, “Yes, do bless Ishmael!”

¹⁹ “No,” God replied, “that isn’t what I said. Sarah shall bear you a son; and you are to name him Isaac (‘Laughter’), and I will sign my covenant with him forever, and with his descendants. ²⁰ As for Ishmael, all right, I will bless him also, just as you have asked me to. I will cause him to multiply and become a great nation. Twelve princes shall be among his posterity. ²¹ But my contract is with Isaac, who will be born to you and Sarah next year at about this time.”

²² That ended the conversation and God left. ²³ Then, that very day, Abraham took Ishmael his son and every other male—born in his household or bought from outside—and cut off their foreskins, just as God had told him to. ^24-27 Abraham was ninety-nine years old at that time, and Ishmael was thirteen. Both were circumcised the same day, along with all the other men and boys of the household, whether born there or bought as slaves.

18 The Lord appeared again to Abraham while he was living in the oak grove at Mamre. This is the way it happened: One hot summer afternoon as he was sitting in the opening of his tent, ² he suddenly noticed three men coming toward him. He sprang up and ran to meet them and welcomed them.

^3-4 “Sirs,” he said, “please don’t go any farther. Stop awhile and rest here in the shade of this tree while I get water to refresh your feet, ⁵ and a bite to eat to strengthen you. Do stay awhile before continuing your journey.”

“All right,” they said, “do as you have said.”

⁶ Then Abraham ran back to the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Mix up some pancakes!^[b] Use your best flour, and make enough for the three of them!” ⁷ Then he ran out to the herd and selected a fat calf and told a servant to hurry and butcher it. ⁸ Soon, taking them cheese and milk and the roast veal, he set it before the men and stood beneath the trees beside them as they ate.

⁹ “Where is Sarah, your wife?” they asked him.

“In the tent,” Abraham replied.

¹⁰ Then the Lord said, “Next year^[c] I will give you and Sarah a son!” (Sarah was listening from the tent door behind him.) ¹¹ Now Abraham and Sarah were both very old, and Sarah was long since past the time when she could have a baby.

¹² So Sarah laughed silently. “A woman my age have a baby?” she scoffed to herself. “And with a husband as old as mine?”

¹³ Then God said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh? Why did she say ‘Can an old woman like me have a baby?’ ¹⁴ Is anything too hard for God? Next year, just as I told you, I will certainly see to it that Sarah has a son.”

¹⁵ But Sarah denied it. “I didn’t laugh,” she lied, for she was afraid.

¹⁶ Then the men stood up from their meal and started on toward Sodom; and Abraham went with them part of the way.

¹⁷ “Should I hide my plan from Abraham?” God asked. ¹⁸ “For Abraham shall become a mighty nation, and he will be a source of blessing for all the nations of the earth. ¹⁹ And I have picked him out to have godly descendants and a godly household—men who are just and good—so that I can do for him all I have promised.”

²⁰ So the Lord told Abraham, “I have heard that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are utterly evil, and that everything they do is wicked. ²¹ I am going down to see whether these reports are true or not. Then I will know.”

^22-23 So the other two went on toward Sodom, but the Lord remained with Abraham a while. Then Abraham approached him and said, “Will you kill good and bad alike? ²⁴ Suppose you find fifty godly people there within the city—will you destroy it, and not spare it for their sakes? ²⁵ That wouldn’t be right! Surely you wouldn’t do such a thing, to kill the godly with the wicked! Why, you would be treating godly and wicked exactly the same! Surely you wouldn’t do that! Should not the Judge of all the earth be fair?”

²⁶ And God replied, “If I find fifty godly people there, I will spare the entire city for their sake.”

²⁷ Then Abraham spoke again. “Since I have begun, let me go on and speak further to the Lord, though I am but dust and ashes. ²⁸ Suppose there are only forty-five? Will you destroy the city for lack of five?”

And God said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five.”

²⁹ Then Abraham went further with his request. “Suppose there are only forty?”

And God replied, “I won’t destroy it if there are forty.”

³⁰ “Please don’t be angry,” Abraham pleaded. “Let me speak: suppose only thirty are found there?”

And God replied, “I won’t do it if there are thirty there.”

³¹ Then Abraham said, “Since I have dared to speak to God, let me continue—suppose there are only twenty?”

And God said, “Then I won’t destroy it for the sake of the twenty.”

³² Finally, Abraham said, “Oh, let not the Lord be angry; I will speak but this once more! Suppose only ten are found?”

And God said, “Then, for the sake of the ten, I won’t destroy it.”

³³ And the Lord went on his way when he had finished his conversation with Abraham. And Abraham returned to his tent.

19 That evening the two angels came to the entrance of the city of Sodom, and Lot was sitting there as they arrived. When he saw them he stood up to meet them, and welcomed them.

² “Sirs,” he said, “come to my home as my guests for the night; you can get up as early as you like and be on your way again.”

“Oh, no thanks,” they said, “we’ll just stretch out here along the street.”

³ But he was very urgent, until at last they went home with him, and he set a great feast before them, complete with freshly baked unleavened bread. After the meal, ⁴ as they were preparing to retire for the night, the men of the city—yes, Sodomites, young and old from all over the city—surrounded the house ⁵ and shouted to Lot, “Bring out those men to us so we can rape them.”

⁶ Lot stepped outside to talk to them, shutting the door behind him. ⁷ “Please, fellows,” he begged, “don’t do such a wicked thing. ⁸ Look—I have two virgin daughters, and I’ll surrender them to you to do with as you wish. But leave these men alone, for they are under my protection.”

⁹ “Stand back,” they yelled. “Who do you think you are? We let this fellow settle among us and now he tries to tell us what to do! We’ll deal with you far worse than with those other men.” And they lunged at Lot and began breaking down the door.

¹⁰ But the two men reached out and pulled Lot in and bolted the door ¹¹ and temporarily blinded the men of Sodom so that they couldn’t find the door.

¹² “What relatives do you have here in the city?” the men asked. “Get them out of this place—sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone else. ¹³ For we will destroy the city completely. The stench of the place has reached to heaven and God has sent us to destroy it.”

¹⁴ So Lot rushed out to tell his daughters’ fiancés, “Quick, get out of the city, for the Lord is going to destroy it.” But the young men looked at him as though he had lost his senses.

¹⁵ At dawn the next morning the angels became urgent. “Hurry,” they said to Lot, “take your wife and your two daughters who are here and get out while you can, or you will be caught in the destruction of the city.”

¹⁶ When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety, outside the city, for the Lord was merciful.

¹⁷ “Flee for your lives,” the angels told him. “And don’t look back. Escape to the mountains. Don’t stay down here on the plain or you will die.”

^18-20 “Oh no, sirs, please,” Lot begged, “since you’ve been so kind to me and saved my life, and you’ve granted me such mercy, let me flee to that little village over there instead of into the mountains, for I fear disaster in the mountains. See, the village is close by and it is just a small one. Please, please, let me go there instead. Don’t you see how small it is? And my life will be saved.”

²¹ “All right,” the angel said, “I accept your proposition and won’t destroy that little city. ²² But hurry! For I can do nothing until you are there.” (From that time on that village was named Zoar, meaning “Little City.”)

²³ The sun was rising as Lot reached the village. ²⁴ Then the Lord rained down fire and flaming tar from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah, ²⁵ and utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, eliminating all life—people, plants, and animals alike. ²⁶ But Lot’s wife looked back as she was following along behind him and became a pillar of salt.

²⁷ That morning Abraham was up early and hurried out to the place where he had stood before the Lord. ²⁸ He looked out across the plain to Sodom and Gomorrah and saw columns of smoke and fumes, as from a furnace, rising from the cities there. ²⁹ So God heeded Abraham’s plea and kept Lot safe, removing him from the maelstrom of death that engulfed the cities.

³⁰ Afterwards Lot left Zoar, fearful of the people there, and went to live in a cave in the mountains with his two daughters. ³¹ One day the older girl said to her sister, “There isn’t a man anywhere in this entire area that our father would let us marry. And our father will soon be too old for having children. ³² Come, let’s fill him with wine and then we will sleep with him, so that our clan will not come to an end.” ³³ So they got him drunk that night, and the older girl went in and had sexual intercourse with her father; but he was unaware of her lying down or getting up again.

³⁴ The next morning she said to her younger sister, “I slept with my father last night. Let’s fill him with wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him, so that our family line will continue.” ³⁵ So they got him drunk again that night, and the younger girl went in and lay with him, and, as before, he didn’t know that anyone was there. ³⁶ And so it was that both girls became pregnant from their father. ³⁷ The older girl’s baby was named Moab; he became the ancestor of the nation of the Moabites. ³⁸ The name of the younger girl’s baby was Benammi; he became the ancestor of the nation of the Ammonites.

20 Now Abraham moved south to the Negeb and settled between Kadesh and Shur. One day, when visiting the city of Gerar, ² he declared that Sarah was his sister! Then King Abimelech sent for her, and had her brought to him at his palace.

³ But that night God came to him in a dream and told him, “You are a dead man, for that woman you took is married.”

⁴ But Abimelech hadn’t slept with her yet, so he said, “Lord, will you slay an innocent man? ⁵ He told me, ‘She is my sister,’ and she herself said, ‘Yes, he is my brother.’ I hadn’t the slightest intention of doing anything wrong.”

⁶ “Yes, I know,” the Lord replied. “That is why I held you back from sinning against me; that is why I didn’t let you touch her. ⁷ Now restore her to her husband, and he will pray for you (for he is a prophet) and you shall live. But if you don’t return her to him, you are doomed to death along with all your household.”

⁸ The king was up early the next morning, and hastily called a meeting of all the palace personnel and told them what had happened. And great fear swept through the crowd.

^9-10 Then the king called for Abraham. “What is this you’ve done to us?” he demanded. “What have I done that deserves treatment like this, to make me and my kingdom guilty of this great sin? Who would suspect that you would do a thing like this to me? Whatever made you think of this vile deed?”

^11-12 “Well,” Abraham said, “I figured this to be a godless place. ‘They will want my wife and will kill me to get her,’ I thought. And besides, she is my sister—or at least a half sister (we both have the same father)—and I married her. ¹³ And when God sent me traveling far from my childhood home, I told her, ‘Have the kindness to mention, wherever we come, that you are my sister.’”

¹⁴ Then King Abimelech took sheep and oxen and servants—both men and women—and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him.

¹⁵ “Look my kingdom over, and choose the place where you want to live,” the king told him. ¹⁶ Then he turned to Sarah. “Look,” he said, “I am giving your ‘brother’ a thousand silver pieces as damages for what I did, to compensate for any embarrassment and to settle any claim against me regarding this matter. Now justice has been done.”

¹⁷ Then Abraham prayed, asking God to cure the king and queen and the other women of the household, so that they could have children; ¹⁸ for God had stricken all the women with barrenness to punish Abimelech for taking Abraham’s wife.

21 ^1-2 Then God did as he had promised, and Sarah became pregnant and gave Abraham a baby son in his old age, at the time God had said; ³ and Abraham named him Isaac (meaning “Laughter!”). ^4-5 Eight days after he was born, Abraham circumcised him, as God required. (Abraham was 100 years old at that time.)

⁶ And Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter! All who hear about this shall rejoice with me. ⁷ For who would have dreamed that I would ever have a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a child in his old age!”

⁸ Time went by and the child grew and was weaned; and Abraham gave a party to celebrate the happy occasion. ⁹ But when Sarah noticed Ishmael—the son of Abraham and the Egyptian girl Hagar—teasing^[d] Isaac, ¹⁰ she turned upon Abraham and demanded, “Get rid of that slave girl and her son. He is not going to share your property with my son. I won’t have it.”

¹¹ This upset Abraham very much, for after all, Ishmael too was his son.

¹² But God told Abraham, “Don’t be upset over the boy or your slave-girl wife; do as Sarah says, for Isaac is the son through whom my promise will be fulfilled. ¹³ And I will make a nation of the descendants of the slave girl’s son, too, because he also is yours.”

¹⁴ So Abraham got up early the next morning, prepared food for the journey, and strapped a canteen of water to Hagar’s shoulders and sent her away with their son. She walked out into the wilderness of Beersheba, wandering aimlessly.

¹⁵ When the water was gone she left the youth in the shade of a bush ¹⁶ and went off and sat down a hundred yards or so away. “I don’t want to watch him die,” she said, and burst into tears, sobbing wildly.

¹⁷ Then God heard the boy crying, and the Angel of God called to Hagar from the sky, “Hagar, what’s wrong? Don’t be afraid! For God has heard the lad’s cries as he is lying there. ¹⁸ Go and get him and comfort him, for I will make a great nation from his descendants.”

¹⁹ Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well; so she refilled the canteen and gave the lad a drink. ^20-21 And God blessed the boy and he grew up in the wilderness of Paran, and became an expert archer. And his mother arranged a marriage for him with a girl from Egypt.

²² About this time King Abimelech and Phicol, commander of his troops, came to Abraham and said to him, “It is evident that God helps you in everything you do; ²³ swear to me by God’s name that you won’t defraud me or my son or my grandson, but that you will be on friendly terms with my country, as I have been toward you.”

²⁴ Abraham replied, “All right, I swear to it!” ²⁵ Then Abraham complained to the king about a well the king’s servants had taken violently away from Abraham’s servants.

²⁶ “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” the king exclaimed, “and I have no idea who is responsible. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

²⁷ Then Abraham gave sheep and oxen to the king, as sacrifices to seal their pact.

^28-29 But when he took seven ewe lambs and set them off by themselves, the king inquired, “Why are you doing that?”

³⁰ And Abraham replied, “They are my gift to you as a public confirmation that this well is mine.”

³¹ So from that time on the well was called Beer-sheba (“Well of the Oath”), because that was the place where they made their covenant. ³² Then King Abimelech and Phicol, commander of his army, returned home again. ³³ And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree beside the well and prayed there to the Lord, calling upon the Eternal God. ³⁴ And Abraham lived in the Philistine country for a long time.

22 Later on, God tested Abraham’s faith and obedience.^[e]

“Abraham!” God called.

“Yes, Lord?” he replied.

² “Take with you your only son—yes, Isaac whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I’ll point out to you!”

³ The next morning Abraham got up early, chopped wood for a fire upon the altar, saddled his donkey, and took with him his son Isaac and two young men who were his servants, and started off to the place where God had told him to go. ⁴ On the third day of the journey Abraham saw the place in the distance.

⁵ “Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told the young men, “and the lad and I will travel yonder and worship, and then come right back.”

⁶ Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering upon Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the knife and the flint for striking a fire. So the two of them went on together.

⁷ “Father,” Isaac asked, “we have the wood and the flint to make the fire, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”

⁸ “God will see to it, my son,” Abraham replied. And they went on.

⁹ When they arrived at the place where God had told Abraham to go, he built an altar and placed the wood in order, ready for the fire, and then tied Isaac and laid him on the altar over the wood. ¹⁰ And Abraham took the knife and lifted it up to plunge it into his son, to slay him.

¹¹ At that moment the Angel of God shouted to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Yes, Lord!” he answered.

¹² “Lay down the knife; don’t hurt the lad in any way,” the Angel said, “for I know that God is first in your life—you have not withheld even your beloved son from me.”

¹³ Then Abraham noticed a ram caught by its horns in a bush. So he took the ram and sacrificed it, instead of his son, as a burnt offering on the altar. ¹⁴ Abraham named the place “Jehovah provides”—and it still goes by that name to this day.

¹⁵ Then the Angel of God called again to Abraham from heaven. ¹⁶ “I, the Lord, have sworn by myself that because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your beloved son from me, ¹⁷ I will bless you with incredible blessings and multiply your descendants into countless thousands and millions, like the stars above you in the sky, and like the sands along the seashore. They will conquer their enemies, ¹⁸ and your offspring^[f] will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth—all because you have obeyed me.”

¹⁹ So they returned to his young men and traveled home again to Beer-sheba.

^20-23 After this, a message arrived that Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor, had borne him eight sons. Their names were: Uz, the oldest, Buz, the next oldest, Kemuel (father of Aram), Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, Bethuel (father of Rebekah).

²⁴ He also had four other children from his concubine, Reumah: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, Maacah.

23 ^1-2 When Sarah was 127 years old, she died in Hebron in the land of Canaan; there Abraham mourned and wept for her. ³ Then, standing beside her body, he said to the men of Heth:

⁴ “Here I am, a visitor in a foreign land, with no place to bury my wife. Please sell me a piece of ground for this purpose.”

^5-6 “Certainly,” the men replied, “for you are an honored prince of God among us; it will be a privilege to have you choose the finest of our sepulchres, so that you can bury her there.”

⁷ Then Abraham bowed low before them and said, ⁸ “Since this is your feeling in the matter, be so kind as to ask Ephron, Zohar’s son, ⁹ to sell me the cave of Mach-pelah, down at the end of his field. I will of course pay the full price for it, whatever is publicly agreed upon, and it will become a permanent cemetery for my family.”

¹⁰ Ephron was sitting there among the others, and now he spoke up, answering Abraham as the others listened, speaking publicly before all the citizens of the town: ¹¹ “Sir,” he said to Abraham, “please listen to me. I will give you the cave and the field without any charge. Here in the presence of my people, I give it to you free. Go and bury your dead.”

¹² Abraham bowed again to the men of Heth, ¹³ and replied to Ephron, as all listened: “No, let me buy it from you. Let me pay the full price of the field, and then I will bury my dead.”

^14-15 “Well, the land is worth 400 pieces of silver,” Ephron said, “but what is that between friends? Go ahead and bury your dead.”

¹⁶ So Abraham paid Ephron the price he had suggested—400 pieces of silver, as publicly agreed. ^17-18 This is the land he bought: Ephron’s field at Mach-pelah, near Mamre, and the cave at the end of the field, and all the trees in the field. They became his permanent possession, by agreement in the presence of the men of Heth at the city gate. ^19-20 So Abraham buried Sarah there, in the field and cave deeded to him by the men of Heth as a burial plot.

24 Abraham was now a very old man, and God blessed him in every way. ² One day Abraham said to his household administrator, who was his oldest servant,

³ “Swear by Jehovah, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not let my son marry one of these local girls, these Canaanites. ⁴ Go instead to my homeland, to my relatives, and find a wife for him there.”

⁵ “But suppose I can’t find a girl who will come so far from home?” the servant asked. “Then shall I take Isaac there, to live among your relatives?”

⁶ “No!” Abraham warned. “Be careful that you don’t do that under any circumstance. ⁷ For the Lord God of heaven told me to leave that land and my people, and promised to give me and my children this land. He will send his angel on ahead of you, and he will see to it that you find a girl from there to be my son’s wife. ⁸ But if you don’t succeed, then you are free from this oath; but under no circumstances are you to take my son there.”

⁹ So the servant vowed^[g] to follow Abraham’s instructions.

¹⁰ He took with him ten of Abraham’s camels loaded with samples of the best of everything his master owned and journeyed to Iraq, to Nahor’s village. ¹¹ There he made the camels kneel down outside the town, beside a spring. It was evening, and the women of the village were coming to draw water.

¹² “O Jehovah, the God of my master,” he prayed, “show kindness to my master Abraham and help me to accomplish the purpose of my journey. ¹³ See, here I am, standing beside this spring, and the girls of the village are coming out to draw water. ¹⁴ This is my request: When I ask one of them for a drink and she says, ‘Yes, certainly, and I will water your camels too!’—let her be the one you have appointed as Isaac’s wife. That is how I will know.”

^15-16 As he was still speaking to the Lord about this, a beautiful young girl^[h] named Rebekah arrived with a water jug on her shoulder and filled it at the spring. (Her father was Bethuel the son of Nahor and his wife Milcah.) ¹⁷ Running over to her, the servant asked her for a drink.

¹⁸ “Certainly, sir,” she said, and quickly lowered the jug for him to drink. ¹⁹ Then she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels, too, until they have enough!”

²⁰ So she emptied the jug into the watering trough and ran down to the spring again and kept carrying water to the camels until they had enough. ²¹ The servant said no more, but watched her carefully to see if she would finish the job,^[i] so that he would know whether she was the one. ²² Then at last, when the camels had finished drinking, he produced a quarter-ounce gold earring^[j] and two five-ounce gold bracelets for her wrists.

²³ “Whose daughter are you, miss?” he asked. “Would your father have any room to put us up for the night?”

²⁴ “My father is Bethuel,” she replied. “My grandparents are Milcah and Nahor. ²⁵ Yes, we have plenty of straw and food for the camels, and a guest room.”

²⁶ The man stood there a moment with head bowed, worshiping Jehovah. ²⁷ “Thank you, Lord God of my master Abraham,” he prayed; “thank you for being so kind and true to him, and for leading me straight to the family of my master’s relatives.”

²⁸ The girl ran home to tell her folks,^{[k] 29-30} and when her brother Laban saw the ring, and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and heard her story, he rushed out to the spring where the man was still standing beside his camels, and said to him, ³¹ “Come and stay with us, friend;^[l] why stand here outside the city when we have a room all ready for you, and a place prepared for the camels!”

³² So the man went home with Laban, and Laban gave him straw to bed down the camels, and feed for them, and water for the camel drivers to wash their feet. ³³ Then supper was served. But the old man said, “I don’t want to eat until I have told you why I am here.”

“All right,” Laban said, “tell us your errand.”

³⁴ “I am Abraham’s servant,” he explained. ³⁵ “And Jehovah has overwhelmed my master with blessings so that he is a great man among the people of his land. God has given him flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and a fortune in silver and gold, and many slaves and camels and donkeys.

³⁶ “Now when Sarah, my master’s wife, was very old, she gave birth to my master’s son, and my master has given him everything he owns. ³⁷ And my master made me promise not to let Isaac marry one of the local girls,^{[m] 38} but to come to his relatives here in this far-off land, to his brother’s family,^[n] and to bring back a girl from here to marry his son. ³⁹ ‘But suppose I can’t find a girl who will come?’ I asked him. ⁴⁰ ‘She will,’ he told me—‘for my Lord, in whose presence I have walked, will send his angel with you and make your mission successful. Yes, find a girl from among my relatives, from my brother’s family. ⁴¹ You are under oath to go and ask. If they won’t send anyone, then you are freed from your promise.’

⁴² “Well, this afternoon when I came to the spring I prayed this prayer: ‘O Jehovah, the God of my master Abraham, if you are planning to make my mission a success, please guide me in this way: ⁴³ Here I am, standing beside this spring. I will say to some girl who comes out to draw water, “Please give me a drink of water!” ⁴⁴ And she will reply, “Certainly! And I’ll water your camels too!” Let that girl be the one you have selected to be the wife of my master’s son.’

⁴⁵ “Well, while I was still speaking these words, Rebekah was coming along with her water jug upon her shoulder; and she went down to the spring and drew water and filled the jug. I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’ ⁴⁶ She quickly lifted the jug down from her shoulder so that I could drink, and told me, ‘Certainly, sir, and I will water your camels too!’ So she did! ⁴⁷ Then I asked her, ‘Whose family are you from?’ And she told me, ‘Nahor’s. My father is Bethuel, the son of Nahor and his wife Milcah.’ So I gave her the ring and the bracelets. ⁴⁸ Then I bowed my head and worshiped and blessed Jehovah, the God of my master Abraham, because he had led me along just the right path to find a girl from the family of my master’s brother.^{[o] 49} So tell me, yes or no. Will you or won’t you be kind to my master and do what is right? When you tell me, then I’ll know what my next step should be, whether to move this way or that.”

⁵⁰ Then Laban and Bethuel replied, “The Lord has obviously brought you here, so what can we say? ⁵¹ Take her and go! Yes, let her be the wife of your master’s son, as Jehovah has directed.”

⁵² At this reply, Abraham’s servant fell to his knees before Jehovah. ⁵³ Then he brought out jewels set in solid gold and silver for Rebekah, and lovely clothing; and he gave many valuable presents to her mother and brother. ⁵⁴ Then they had supper, and the servant and the men with him stayed there overnight. But early the next morning he said, “Send me back to my master!”

⁵⁵ “But we want Rebekah here at least another ten days or so!” her mother and brother exclaimed. “Then she can go.”

⁵⁶ But he pleaded, “Don’t hinder my return; the Lord has made my mission successful, and I want to report back to my master.”

⁵⁷ “Well,” they said, “we’ll call the girl and ask her what she thinks.”

⁵⁸ So they called Rebekah. “Are you willing to go with this man?” they asked her.

And she replied, “Yes, I will go.”

⁵⁹ So they told her good-bye, sending along the woman who had been her childhood nurse, ⁶⁰ and blessed her with this blessing as they parted:

⁶¹ So Rebekah and her servant girls mounted the camels and went with him.

⁶² Meanwhile, Isaac, whose home was in the Negeb, had returned to Beer-lahai-roi. ⁶³ One evening as he was taking a walk out in the fields, meditating, he looked up and saw the camels coming. ⁶⁴ Rebekah noticed him and quickly dismounted.

⁶⁵ “Who is that man walking through the fields to meet us?” she asked the servant.

And he replied, “It is my master’s son!”^[p] So she covered her face with her veil. ⁶⁶ Then the servant told Isaac the whole story.

⁶⁷ And Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother’s tent, and she became his wife. He loved her very much, and she was a special comfort to him after the loss of his mother.

25 ^1-2 Now Abraham married again. Keturah was his new wife, and she bore him several children: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, Shuah. ³ Jokshan’s two sons were Sheba and Dedan. Dedan’s sons were Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim. ⁴ Midian’s sons were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah.^[q]

⁵ Abraham deeded everything he owned to Isaac; ⁶ however, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them off into the east, away from Isaac.

^7-8 Then Abraham died, at the ripe old age of 175, ^9-10 and his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Mach-pelah near Mamre, in the field Abraham had purchased from Ephron the son of Zohar, the Hethite, where Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was buried.

¹¹ After Abraham’s death, God poured out rich blessings upon Isaac. (Isaac had now moved south to Beer-lahai-roi in the Negeb.)

^12-15 Here is a list, in the order of their births, of the descendants of Ishmael, who was the son of Abraham and Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s slave girl: Nebaioth, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, Kedemah. ¹⁶ These twelve sons of his became the founders of twelve tribes that bore their names. ¹⁷ Ishmael finally died at the age of 137, and joined his ancestors.^{[r] 18} These descendants of Ishmael were scattered across the country from Havilah to Shur (which is a little way to the northeast of the Egyptian border in the direction of Assyria). And they were constantly at war with one another.

¹⁹ This is the story of Isaac’s children: ²⁰ Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan-aram. Rebekah was the sister of Laban. ²¹ Isaac pleaded with Jehovah to give Rebekah a child, for even after many years of marriage^[s] she had no children. Then at last she became pregnant. ²² And it seemed as though children were fighting each other inside her!

“I can’t endure this,” she exclaimed. So she asked the Lord about it.

²³ And he told her, “The sons in your womb shall become two rival nations. One will be stronger than the other; and the older shall be a servant of the younger!”

²⁴ And sure enough, she had twins. ²⁵ The first was born so covered with reddish hair that one would think he was wearing a fur coat! So they called him “Esau.”^{[t] 26} Then the other twin was born with his hand on Esau’s heel! So they called him Jacob (meaning “Grabber”). Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.

²⁷ As the boys grew, Esau became a skillful hunter, while Jacob was a quiet sort who liked to stay at home. ²⁸ Isaac’s favorite was Esau, because of the venison he brought home, and Rebekah’s favorite was Jacob.

²⁹ One day Jacob was cooking stew when Esau arrived home exhausted from the hunt.

And Esau vowed, thereby selling all his eldest-son rights to his younger brother. ³⁴ Then Jacob gave Esau bread, peas, and stew; so he ate and drank and went on about his business, indifferent to the loss of the rights he had thrown away.^[u]

26 Now a severe famine overshadowed the land, as had happened before, in Abraham’s time, and so Isaac moved to the city of Gerar where Abimelech, king of the Philistines, lived.

² Jehovah appeared to him there and told him, “Don’t go to Egypt. ³ Do as I say and stay here in this land. If you do, I will be with you and bless you, and I will give all this land to you and to your descendants, just as I promised Abraham your father. ⁴ And I will cause your descendants to become as numerous as the stars! And I will give them all of these lands; and they shall be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. ⁵ I will do this because Abraham obeyed my commandments and laws.”

⁶ So Isaac stayed in Gerar. ⁷ And when the men there asked him about Rebekah, he said, “She is my sister!” For he feared for his life if he told them she was his wife; he was afraid they would kill him to get her, for she was very attractive. ⁸ But sometime later, King Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out of a window and saw Isaac and Rebekah making love.

⁹ Abimelech called for Isaac and exclaimed, “She is your wife! Why did you say she is your sister?”

“Because I was afraid I would be murdered,” Isaac replied. “I thought someone would kill me to get her from me.”

¹⁰ “How could you treat us this way?” Abimelech exclaimed. “Someone might carelessly have raped her, and we would be doomed.” ¹¹ Then Abimelech made a public proclamation: “Anyone harming this man or his wife shall die.”

¹² That year Isaac’s crops were tremendous—100 times the grain he sowed. For Jehovah blessed him. ¹³ He was soon a man of great wealth and became richer and richer. ¹⁴ He had large flocks of sheep and goats, great herds of cattle, and many servants. And the Philistines became jealous of him. ¹⁵ So they filled up his wells with earth—all those dug by the servants of his father Abraham.

¹⁶ And King Abimelech asked Isaac to leave the country. “Go somewhere else,” he said, “for you have become too rich and powerful for us.”

¹⁷ So Isaac moved to Gerar Valley and lived there instead. ¹⁸ And Isaac redug the wells of his father Abraham, the ones the Philistines had filled after his father’s death, and gave them the same names they had had before, when his father had named them. ¹⁹ His shepherds also dug a new well in Gerar Valley, and found a gushing underground spring.

²⁰ Then the local shepherds came and claimed it. “This is our land and our well,” they said, and argued over it with Isaac’s herdsmen. So he named the well, “The Well of Argument!”^{[v] 21} Isaac’s men then dug another well, but again there was a fight over it. So he called it, “The Well of Anger.”^{[w] 22} Abandoning that one, he dug again, and the local residents finally left him alone. So he called it, “The Well of Room Enough for Us at Last!”^[x] “For now at last,” he said, “the Lord has made room for us and we shall thrive.”

²³ When he went to Beer-sheba, ²⁴ Jehovah appeared to him on the night of his arrival. “I am the God of Abraham your father,” he said. “Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you, and will give you so many descendants that they will become a great nation—because of my promise to Abraham, who obeyed me.” ²⁵ Then Isaac built an altar and worshiped Jehovah; and he settled there, and his servants dug a well.

²⁶ One day Isaac had visitors from Gerar. King Abimelech arrived with his advisor, Ahuzzath, and also Phicol, his army commander.

²⁷ “Why have you come?” Isaac asked them. “This is obviously no friendly visit, since you kicked me out in a most uncivil way.”

²⁸ “Well,” they said, “we can plainly see that Jehovah is blessing you. We’ve decided to ask for a treaty between us. ²⁹ Promise that you will not harm us, just as we have not harmed you, and in fact, have done only good to you and have sent you away in peace; we bless you in the name of the Lord.”

³⁰ So Isaac prepared a great feast for them, and they ate and drank in preparation for the treaty ceremonies. ³¹ In the morning, as soon as they were up, they each took solemn oaths to seal a nonaggression pact. Then Isaac sent them happily home again.

³² That very same day Isaac’s servants came to tell him, “We have found water”—in the well they had been digging. ³³ So he named the well, “The Well of the Oath,”^[y] and the city that grew up there was named “Oath,” and is called that to this day.

³⁴ Esau, at the age of forty, married a girl named Judith, daughter of Be-eri the Hethite; and he also married Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hethite. ³⁵ But Isaac and Rebekah were bitter about his marrying them.

27 One day, in Isaac’s old age when he was almost blind, he called for Esau his oldest son.

⁵ But Rebekah overheard the conversation. So when Esau left for the field to hunt for the venison, ^6-7 she called her son Jacob and told him what his father had said to his brother.

¹⁴ So Jacob followed his mother’s instructions, bringing the dressed kids, which she prepared in his father’s favorite way. ¹⁵ Then she took Esau’s best clothes—they were there in the house—and instructed Jacob to put them on. ¹⁶ And she made him a pair of gloves from the hairy skin of the young goats, and fastened a strip of the hide around his neck; ¹⁷ then she gave him the meat, with its rich aroma, and some fresh-baked bread.

¹⁸ Jacob carried the platter of food into the room where his father was lying.

²² (Jacob goes over to his father. He feels him!)

²³ (The ruse convinces Isaac and he gives Jacob his blessings):

(Jacob takes it over to him and Isaac eats; he also drinks the wine Jacob brings him.)

(Jacob goes over and kisses him on the cheek. Isaac sniffs his clothes, and finally seems convinced.)

³⁰ (As soon as Isaac has blessed Jacob, and almost before Jacob leaves the room, Esau arrives, coming in from his hunting. ³¹ He also has prepared his father’s favorite dish and brings it to him.)

³³ (Isaac begins to tremble noticeably.)

³⁴ (Esau begins to sob with deep and bitter sobs.)

(Isaac says nothing^[ad] as Esau weeps.)

⁴¹ So Esau hated Jacob because of what he had done to him. He said to himself, “My father will soon be gone, and then I will kill Jacob.” ⁴² But someone got wind of what he was planning and reported it to Rebekah. She sent for Jacob and told him that his life was being threatened by Esau.

⁴³ “This is what to do,” she said. “Flee to your Uncle Laban in Haran. ⁴⁴ Stay there with him awhile until your brother’s fury is spent, ⁴⁵ and he forgets what you have done. Then I will send for you. For why should I be bereaved of both of you in one day?”

⁴⁶ Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I’m sick and tired of these local girls. I’d rather die than see Jacob marry one of them.”

28 So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him and said to him, “Don’t marry one of these Canaanite girls. ² Instead, go at once to Paddan-aram, to the house of your grandfather^[ae] Bethuel, and marry one of your cousins—your Uncle Laban’s daughters. ³ God Almighty bless you and give you many children; may you become a great nation of many tribes! ⁴ May God pass on to you and to your descendants the mighty blessings promised to Abraham. May you own this land where we now are foreigners, for God has given it to Abraham.”

⁵ So Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to visit his Uncle Laban, his mother’s brother—the son of Bethuel the Aramean.

^6-8 Esau realized that his father despised the local girls, and that his father and mother had sent Jacob to Paddan-aram, with his father’s blessing, to get a wife from there, and that they had strictly warned him against marrying a Canaanite girl, and that Jacob had agreed and had left for Paddan-aram. ⁹ So Esau went to his Uncle Ishmael’s family and married another wife from there, besides the wives he already had. Her name was Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth, and daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son.

¹⁰ So Jacob left Beer-sheba and journeyed toward Haran. ¹¹ That night, when he stopped to camp at sundown, he found a rock for a headrest and lay down to sleep, ¹² and dreamed that a staircase^[af] reached from earth to heaven, and he saw the angels of God going up and down upon it.

¹³ At the top of the stairs stood the Lord. “I am Jehovah,” he said, “the God of Abraham, and of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on is yours! I will give it to you and to your descendants. ¹⁴ For you will have descendants as many as dust! They will cover the land from east to west and from north to south; and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. ¹⁵ What’s more, I am with you, and will protect you wherever you go, and will bring you back safely to this land; I will be with you constantly until I have finished giving you all I am promising.”

^16-17 Then Jacob woke up. “God lives here!” he exclaimed in terror. “I’ve stumbled into his home! This is the awesome entrance to heaven!” ¹⁸ The next morning he got up very early and set his stone headrest upright as a memorial pillar, and poured olive oil over it. ¹⁹ He named the place Bethel (“House of God”), though the previous name of the nearest village^[ag] was Luz.