Genesis 15:1--19:38
The Cutting of the Covenant
15:1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram! I am your shield and the one who will reward you in great abundance.”
15:2 But Abram said, “O sovereign Lord, what will you give me since I continue to be childless, and my heir is Eliezer of Damascus?”
15:3 Abram added, “Since you have not given me a descendant, then look, one born in my house will be my heir!”
15:4 But look, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but instead a son who comes from your own body will be your heir.”
15:5 The Lord took him outside and said, “Gaze into the sky and count the stars – if you are able to count them!” Then he said to him, “So will your descendants be.”
15:6 Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord considered his response of faith as proof of genuine loyalty.
15:7 The Lord said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”
15:8 But Abram said, “O sovereign Lord, by what can I know that I am to possess it?”
15:9 The Lord said to him, “Take for me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
15:10 So Abram took all these for him and then cut them in two and placed each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in half.
15:11 When birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
15:12 When the sun went down, Abram fell sound asleep, and great terror overwhelmed him.
15:13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign country. They will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years.
15:14 But I will execute judgment on the nation that they will serve. Afterward they will come out with many possessions.
15:15 But as for you, you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.
15:16 In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its limit.”
15:17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking firepot with a flaming torch passed between the animal parts.
15:18 That day the Lord made a covenant with Abram: “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River –
15:19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,
15:20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,
15:21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”
The Birth of Ishmael
16:1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not given birth to any children, but she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar.
16:2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Since the Lord has prevented me from having children, have sexual relations with my servant. Perhaps I can have a family by her.” Abram did what Sarai told him.
16:3 So after Abram had lived in Canaan for ten years, Sarai, Abram’s wife, gave Hagar, her Egyptian servant, to her husband to be his wife.
16:4 He had sexual relations with Hagar, and she became pregnant. Once Hagar realized she was pregnant, she despised Sarai.
16:5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You have brought this wrong on me! I allowed my servant to have sexual relations with you, but when she realized that she was pregnant, she despised me. May the Lord judge between you and me!”
16:6 Abram said to Sarai, “Since your servant is under your authority, do to her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai treated Hagar harshly, so she ran away from Sarai.
16:7 The Lord’s angel found Hagar near a spring of water in the desert – the spring that is along the road to Shur.
16:8 He said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She replied, “I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai.”
16:9 Then the Lord’s angel said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.
16:10 I will greatly multiply your descendants,” the Lord’s angel added, “so that they will be too numerous to count.”
16:11 Then the Lord’s angel said to her,
“You are now pregnant
and are about to give birth to a son.
You are to name him Ishmael,
for the Lord has heard your painful groans.
16:12 He will be a wild donkey of a man.
He will be hostile to everyone,
and everyone will be hostile to him.
He will live away from his brothers.”
16:13 So Hagar named the Lord who spoke to her, “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “Here I have seen one who sees me!”
16:14 That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi. (It is located between Kadesh and Bered.)
16:15 So Hagar gave birth to Abram’s son, whom Abram named Ishmael.
16:16 (Now Abram was 86 years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.)
The Sign of the Covenant
17:1 When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the sovereign God. Walk before me and be blameless.
17:2 Then I will confirm my covenant between me and you, and I will give you a multitude of descendants.”
17:3 Abram bowed down with his face to the ground, and God said to him,
17:4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of a multitude of nations.
17:5 No longer will your name be Abram. Instead, your name will be Abraham because I will make you the father of a multitude of nations.
17:6 I will make you extremely fruitful. I will make nations of you, and kings will descend from you.
17:7 I will confirm my covenant as a perpetual covenant between me and you. It will extend to your descendants after you throughout their generations. I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
17:8 I will give the whole land of Canaan – the land where you are now residing – to you and your descendants after you as a permanent possession. I will be their God.”
17:9 Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep the covenantal requirement I am imposing on you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.
17:10 This is my requirement that you and your descendants after you must keep: Every male among you must be circumcised.
17:11 You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskins. This will be a reminder of the covenant between me and you.
17:12 Throughout your generations every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, whether born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not one of your descendants.
17:13 They must indeed be circumcised, whether born in your house or bought with money. The sign of my covenant will be visible in your flesh as a permanent reminder.
17:14 Any uncircumcised male who has not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin will be cut off from his people – he has failed to carry out my requirement.”
17:15 Then God said to Abraham, “As for your wife, you must no longer call her Sarai; Sarah will be her name.
17:16 I will bless her and will give you a son through her. I will bless her and she will become a mother of nations. Kings of countries will come from her!”
17:17 Then Abraham bowed down with his face to the ground and laughed as he said to himself, “Can a son be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?”
17:18 Abraham said to God, “O that Ishmael might live before you!”
17:19 God said, “No, Sarah your wife is going to bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will confirm my covenant with him as a perpetual covenant for his descendants after him.
17:20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you. I will indeed bless him, make him fruitful, and give him a multitude of descendants. He will become the father of twelve princes; I will make him into a great nation.
17:21 But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this set time next year.”
17:22 When he finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.
17:23 Abraham took his son Ishmael and every male in his household (whether born in his house or bought with money) and circumcised them on that very same day, just as God had told him to do.
17:24 Now Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised;
17:25 his son Ishmael was thirteen years old when he was circumcised.
17:26 Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised on the very same day.
17:27 All the men of his household, whether born in his household or bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.
Three Special Visitors
18:1 The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent during the hottest time of the day.
18:2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing across from him. When he saw them he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.
18:3 He said, “My lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by and leave your servant.
18:4 Let a little water be brought so that you may all wash your feet and rest under the tree.
18:5 And let me get a bit of food so that you may refresh yourselves since you have passed by your servant’s home. After that you may be on your way.” “All right,” they replied, “you may do as you say.”
18:6 So Abraham hurried into the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Take three measures of fine flour, knead it, and make bread.”
18:7 Then Abraham ran to the herd and chose a fine, tender calf, and gave it to a servant, who quickly prepared it.
18:8 Abraham then took some curds and milk, along with the calf that had been prepared, and placed the food before them. They ate while he was standing near them under a tree.
18:9 Then they asked him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” He replied, “There, in the tent.”
18:10 One of them said, “I will surely return to you when the season comes round again, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” (Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, not far behind him.
18:11 Abraham and Sarah were old and advancing in years; Sarah had long since passed menopause.)
18:12 So Sarah laughed to herself, thinking, “After I am worn out will I have pleasure, especially when my husband is old too?”
18:13 The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child when I am old?’
18:14 Is anything impossible for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.”
18:15 Then Sarah lied, saying, “I did not laugh,” because she was afraid. But the Lord said, “No! You did laugh.”
Abraham Pleads for Sodom
18:16 When the men got up to leave, they looked out over Sodom. (Now Abraham was walking with them to see them on their way.)
18:17 Then the Lord said, “Should I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?
18:18 After all, Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations on the earth will pronounce blessings on one another using his name.
18:19 I have chosen him so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. Then the Lord will give to Abraham what he promised him.”
18:20 So the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so blatant
18:21 that I must go down and see if they are as wicked as the outcry suggests. If not, I want to know.”
18:22 The two men turned and headed toward Sodom, but Abraham was still standing before the Lord.
18:23 Abraham approached and said, “Will you sweep away the godly along with the wicked?
18:24 What if there are fifty godly people in the city? Will you really wipe it out and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty godly people who are in it?
18:25 Far be it from you to do such a thing – to kill the godly with the wicked, treating the godly and the wicked alike! Far be it from you! Will not the judge of the whole earth do what is right?”
18:26 So the Lord replied, “If I find in the city of Sodom fifty godly people, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
18:27 Then Abraham asked, “Since I have undertaken to speak to the Lord (although I am but dust and ashes),
18:28 what if there are five less than the fifty godly people? Will you destroy the whole city because five are lacking?” He replied, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”
18:29 Abraham spoke to him again, “What if forty are found there?” He replied, “I will not do it for the sake of the forty.”
18:30 Then Abraham said, “May the Lord not be angry so that I may speak! What if thirty are found there?” He replied, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”
18:31 Abraham said, “Since I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty are found there?” He replied, “I will not destroy it for the sake of the twenty.”
18:32 Finally Abraham said, “May the Lord not be angry so that I may speak just once more. What if ten are found there?” He replied, “I will not destroy it for the sake of the ten.”
18:33 The Lord went on his way when he had finished speaking to Abraham. Then Abraham returned home.
The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
19:1 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening while Lot was sitting in the city’s gateway. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face toward the ground.
19:2 He said, “Here, my lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house. Stay the night and wash your feet. Then you can be on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they replied, “we’ll spend the night in the town square.”
19:3 But he urged them persistently, so they turned aside with him and entered his house. He prepared a feast for them, including bread baked without yeast, and they ate.
19:4 Before they could lie down to sleep, all the men – both young and old, from every part of the city of Sodom – surrounded the house.
19:5 They shouted to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!”
19:6 Lot went outside to them, shutting the door behind him.
19:7 He said, “No, my brothers! Don’t act so wickedly!
19:8 Look, I have two daughters who have never had sexual relations with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do to them whatever you please. Only don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
19:9 “Out of our way!” they cried, and “This man came to live here as a foreigner, and now he dares to judge us! We’ll do more harm to you than to them!” They kept pressing in on Lot until they were close enough to break down the door.
19:10 So the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house as they shut the door.
19:11 Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, from the youngest to the oldest, with blindness. The men outside wore themselves out trying to find the door.
19:12 Then the two visitors said to Lot, “Who else do you have here? Do you have any sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or other relatives in the city? Get them out of this place
19:13 because we are about to destroy it. The outcry against this place is so great before the Lord that he has sent us to destroy it.”
19:14 Then Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who were going to marry his daughters. He said, “Quick, get out of this place because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was ridiculing them.
19:15 At dawn the angels hurried Lot along, saying, “Get going! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be destroyed when the city is judged!”
19:16 When Lot hesitated, the men grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters because the Lord had compassion on them. They led them away and placed them outside the city.
19:17 When they had brought them outside, they said, “Run for your lives! Don’t look behind you or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains or you will be destroyed!”
19:18 But Lot said to them, “No, please, Lord!
19:19 Your servant has found favor with you, and you have shown me great kindness by sparing my life. But I am not able to escape to the mountains because this disaster will overtake me and I’ll die.
19:20 Look, this town over here is close enough to escape to, and it’s just a little one. Let me go there. It’s just a little place, isn’t it? Then I’ll survive.”
19:21 “Very well,” he replied, “I will grant this request too and will not overthrow the town you mentioned.
19:22 Run there quickly, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” (This incident explains why the town was called Zoar.)
19:23 The sun had just risen over the land as Lot reached Zoar.
19:24 Then the Lord rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. It was sent down from the sky by the Lord.
19:25 So he overthrew those cities and all that region, including all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation that grew from the ground.
19:26 But Lot’s wife looked back longingly and was turned into a pillar of salt.
19:27 Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the Lord.
19:28 He looked out toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of that region. As he did so, he saw the smoke rising up from the land like smoke from a furnace.
19:29 So when God destroyed the cities of the region, God honored Abraham’s request. He removed Lot from the midst of the destruction when he destroyed the cities Lot had lived in.
19:30 Lot went up from Zoar with his two daughters and settled in the mountains because he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters.
19:31 Later the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man anywhere nearby to have sexual relations with us, according to the way of all the world.
19:32 Come, let’s make our father drunk with wine so we can have sexual relations with him and preserve our family line through our father.”
19:33 So that night they made their father drunk with wine, and the older daughter came and had sexual relations with her father. But he was not aware that she had sexual relations with him and then got up.
19:34 So in the morning the older daughter said to the younger, “Since I had sexual relations with my father last night, let’s make him drunk again tonight. Then you go and have sexual relations with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.”
19:35 So they made their father drunk that night as well, and the younger one came and had sexual relations with him. But he was not aware that she had sexual relations with him and then got up.
19:36 In this way both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father.
19:37 The older daughter gave birth to a son and named him Moab. He is the ancestor of the Moabites of today.
19:38 The younger daughter also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-Ammi. He is the ancestor of the Ammonites of today.
Genesis 8:7-8
8:7 and sent out a raven; it kept flying
back and forth until the waters had dried up on the earth.
8:8 Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground.
Genesis 25:4
25:4 The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. All these were descendants
of Keturah.
Genesis 29:6
29:6 “Is he well?”
Jacob asked. They replied, “He is well.
Now look, here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep.”
Genesis 30:30
30:30 Indeed,
you had little before I arrived,
but now your possessions have increased many times over.
The
Lord has blessed you wherever I worked.
But now, how long must it be before I do something for my own family too?”
Ezekiel 13:11
13:11 Tell the ones who coat it with whitewash that it will fall. When there is a deluge of rain, hailstones
will fall and a violent wind will break out.
Nahum 1:8
1:8 But with an overwhelming flood
he will make a complete end of Nineveh;
he will drive his enemies into darkness.
Matthew 7:25-27
7:25 The rain fell, the flood
came, and the winds beat against that house, but it did not collapse because it had been founded on rock.
7:26 Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.
7:27 The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, and it collapsed; it was utterly destroyed!”
Revelation 18:8
18:8 For this reason, she will experience her plagues
in a single day: disease,
mourning,
and famine, and she will be burned down
with fire, because the Lord God who judges her is powerful!”