Genesis 20-23

Genesis 20

¹And Abraham went on his way from there to the land of the South, and was living between Kadesh and Shur, in Gerar.

²And Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah.

³But God came to Abimelech in a dream in the night, and said to him, Truly you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken; for she is a man's wife.

⁴Now Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, Lord, will you put to death an upright nation?

⁵Did he not say to me himself, She is my sister? and she herself said, He is my brother: with an upright heart and clean hands have I done this.

⁶And God said to him in the dream, I see that you have done this with an upright heart, and I have kept you from sinning against me: for this reason I did not let you come near her.

⁷So now, give the man back his wife, for he is a prophet, and let him say a prayer for you, so your life may be safe: but if you do not give her back, be certain that death will come to you and all your house.

⁸So Abimelech got up early in the morning and sent for all his servants and gave them word of these things, and they were full of fear.

⁹Then Abimelech sent for Abraham, and said, What have you done to us? what wrong have I done you that you have put on me and on my kingdom so great a sin? You have done to me things which are not to be done.

¹⁰And Abimelech said to Abraham, Why did you do this thing?

¹¹And Abraham said, Because it seemed to me that there was no fear of God in this place, and that they might put me to death because of my wife.

¹²And, in fact, she is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife:

¹³And when God sent me wandering from my father's house, I said to her, Let this be the sign of your love for me; wherever we go, say of me, He is my brother.

¹⁴Then Abimelech gave to Abraham sheep and oxen and men-servants and women-servants, and gave him back his wife Sarah.

¹⁵And Abimelech said, See, all my land is before you; take whatever place seems good to you.

¹⁶And he said to Sarah, See, I have given to your brother a thousand bits of silver so that your wrong may be put right; now your honour is clear in the eyes of all.

¹⁷Then Abraham made prayer to God, and God made Abimelech well again, and his wife and his women-servants, so that they had children.

¹⁸For the Lord had kept all the women of the house of Abimelech from having children, because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.

Genesis 21

¹And the Lord came to Sarah as he had said and did to her as he had undertaken.

²And Sarah became with child, and gave Abraham a son when he was old, at the time named by God.

³And Abraham gave to his son, to whom Sarah had given birth, the name Isaac.

⁴And when his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham made him undergo circumcision, as God had said to him.

⁵Now Abraham was a hundred years old when the birth of Isaac took place.

⁶And Sarah said, God has given me cause for laughing, and everyone who has news of it will be laughing with me.

⁷And she said, Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would have a child at her breast? for see, I have given him a son now when he is old.

⁸And when the child was old enough to be taken from the breast, Abraham made a great feast.

⁹And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian playing with Isaac.

¹⁰So she said to Abraham, Send away that woman and her son: for the son of that woman is not to have a part in the heritage with my son Isaac.

¹¹And this was a great grief to Abraham because of his son.

¹²But God said, Let it not be a grief to you because of the boy and Hagar his mother; give ear to whatever Sarah says to you, because it is from Isaac that your seed will take its name.

¹³And I will make a nation of the son of your servant-woman, because he is your seed.

¹⁴And early in the morning Abraham got up, and gave Hagar some bread and a water-skin, and put the boy on her back, and sent her away: and she went, wandering in the waste land of Beer-sheba.

¹⁵And when all the water in the skin was used up, she put the child down under a tree.

¹⁶And she went some distance away, about an arrow flight, and seating herself on the earth, she gave way to bitter weeping, saying, Let me not see the death of my child.

¹⁷And the boy's cry came to the ears of God; and the angel of God said to Hagar from heaven, Hagar, why are you weeping? have no fear, for the child's cry has come to the ears of God.

¹⁸Come, take your child in your arms, for I will make of him a great nation.

¹⁹Then God made her eyes open, and she saw a water-spring, and she got water in the skin and gave the boy a drink.

²⁰And God was with the boy, and he became tall and strong, and he became a bowman, living in the waste land.

²¹And while he was in the waste land of Paran, his mother got him a wife from the land of Egypt.

²²Now at that time, Abimelech and Phicol, the captain of his army, said to Abraham, I see that God is with you in all you do.

²³Now, then, give me your oath, in the name of God, that you will not be false to me or to my sons after me, but that as I have been good to you, so you will be to me and to this land where you have been living.

²⁴And Abraham said, I will give you my oath.

²⁵But Abraham made a protest to Abimelech because of a water-hole which Abimelech's servants had taken by force.

²⁶But Abimelech said, I have no idea who has done this thing; you never gave me word of it, and I had no knowledge of it till this day.

²⁷And Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made an agreement together.

²⁸And Abraham put seven young lambs of the flock on one side by themselves.

²⁹Then Abimelech said, What are these seven lambs which you have put on one side?

³⁰And he said, Take these seven lambs from me as a witness that I have made this water-hole.

³¹So he gave that place the name Beer-sheba, because there the two of them had given their oaths.

³²So they made an agreement at Beer-sheba, and Abimelech and Phicol, the captain of his army, went back to the land of the Philistines.

³³And Abraham, after planting a holy tree in Beer-sheba, gave worship to the name of the Lord, the Eternal God.

³⁴And Abraham went on living in the land of the Philistines as in a strange country.

Genesis 22

¹Now after these things, God put Abraham to the test, and said to him, Abraham; and he said, Here am I.

²And he said to him, Take your son, your dearly loved only son Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and give him as a burned offering on one of the mountains of which I will give you knowledge.

³And Abraham got up early in the morning, and made ready his ass, and took with him two of his young men and Isaac, his son, and after the wood for the burned offering had been cut, he went on his way to the place of which God had given him word.

⁴And on the third day, Abraham, lifting up his eyes, saw the place a long way off.

⁵Then he said to his young men, Keep here with the ass; and I and the boy will go on and give worship and come back again to you.

⁶And Abraham put the wood for the burned offering on his son's back, and he himself took the fire and the knife in his hand, and the two of them went on together.

⁷Then Isaac said to Abraham, My father; and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, We have wood and fire here, but where is the lamb for the burned offering?

⁸And Abraham said, God himself will give the lamb for the burned offering: so they went on together.

⁹And they came to the place of which God had given him knowledge; and there Abraham made the altar and put the wood in place on it, and having made tight the bands round Isaac his son, he put him on the wood on the altar.

¹⁰And stretching out his hand, Abraham took the knife to put his son to death.

¹¹But the voice of the angel of the Lord came from heaven, saying, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

¹²And he said, Let not your hand be stretched out against the boy to do anything to him; for now I am certain that the fear of God is in your heart, because you have not kept back your son, your only son, from me.

¹³And lifting up his eyes, Abraham saw a sheep fixed by its horns in the brushwood: and Abraham took the sheep and made a burned offering of it in place of his son.

¹⁴And Abraham gave that place the name Yahweh-yireh: as it is said to this day, In the mountain the Lord is seen.

¹⁵And the voice of the angel of the Lord came to Abraham a second time from heaven,

¹⁶Saying, I have taken an oath by my name, says the Lord, because you have done this and have not kept back from me your dearly loved only son,

¹⁷That I will certainly give you my blessing, and your seed will be increased like the stars of heaven and the sand by the seaside; your seed will take the land of those who are against them;

¹⁸And your seed will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth, because you have done what I gave you orders to do.

¹⁹Then Abraham went back to his young men and they went together to Beer-sheba, the place where Abraham was living.

²⁰After these things, Abraham had news that Milcah, the wife of his brother Nahor, had given birth to children;

²¹Uz the oldest, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel, the father of Aram,

²²And Chesed and Hazo and Pildash and Jidlaph and Bethuel.

²³Bethuel was the father of Rebekah: these eight were the children of Milcah and Nahor, Abraham's brother.

²⁴And his servant Reumah gave birth to Tebah and Gaham and Tahash and Maacah.

Genesis 23

¹Now the years of Sarah's life were a hundred and twenty-seven.

²And Sarah's death took place in Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron, in the land of Canaan: and Abraham went into his house, weeping and sorrowing for Sarah.

³And Abraham came from his dead and said to the children of Heth,

⁴I am living among you as one from a strange country: give me some land here as my property, so that I may put my dead to rest.

⁵And in answer the children of Heth said to Abraham,

⁶My lord, truly you are a great chief among us; take the best of our resting-places for your dead; not one of us will keep back from you a place where you may put your dead to rest.

⁷And Abraham got up and gave honour to the children of Heth, the people of that land.

⁸And he said to them, If you will let me put my dead to rest here, make a request for me to Ephron, the son of Zohar,

⁹That he will give me the hollow in the rock named Machpelah, which is his property at the end of his field; let him give it to me for its full price as a resting-place for my dead among you.

¹⁰Now Ephron was seated among the children of Heth: and Ephron the Hittite gave Abraham his answer in the hearing of the children of Heth, and of all those who came into his town, saying,

¹¹No, my lord, I will give you the field with the hollow in the rock; before all the children of my people will I give it to you for a resting-place for your dead.

¹²And Abraham went down on his face before the people of the land.

¹³And Abraham said to Ephron, in the hearing of the people of the land, If only you will give ear to me, I will give you the price of the field; take it, and let me put my dead to rest there.

¹⁴So Ephron said to Abraham,

¹⁵My lord, give ear to me: the value of the land is four hundred shekels; what is that between me and you? so put your dead to rest there.

¹⁶And Abraham took note of the price fixed by Ephron in the hearing of the children of Heth, and gave him four hundred shekels in current money.

¹⁷So Ephron's field at Machpelah near Mamre, with the hollow in the rock and all the trees in the field and round it,

¹⁸Became the property of Abraham before the eyes of the children of Heth and of all who came into the town.

¹⁹Then Abraham put Sarah his wife to rest in the hollow rock in the field of Machpelah near Mamre, that is, Hebron in the land of Canaan.

²⁰And the field and the hollow rock were handed over to Abraham as his property by the children of Heth.