Genesis 20:1--23:20
Abraham and Abimelech
20:1 Abraham journeyed from there to the Negev region and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he lived as a temporary resident in Gerar,
20:2 Abraham said about his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” So Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent for Sarah and took her.
20:3 But God appeared to Abimelech in a dream at night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken, for she is someone else’s wife.”
20:4 Now Abimelech had not gone near her. He said, “Lord, would you really slaughter an innocent nation?
20:5 Did Abraham not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ I have done this with a clear conscience and with innocent hands!”
20:6 Then in the dream God replied to him, “Yes, I know that you have done this with a clear conscience. That is why I have kept you from sinning against me and why I did not allow you to touch her.
20:7 But now give back the man’s wife. Indeed he is a prophet and he will pray for you; thus you will live. But if you don’t give her back, know that you will surely die along with all who belong to you.”
20:8 Early in the morning Abimelech summoned all his servants. When he told them about all these things, they were terrified.
20:9 Abimelech summoned Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? What sin did I commit against you that would cause you to bring such great guilt on me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done!”
20:10 Then Abimelech asked Abraham, “What prompted you to do this thing?”
20:11 Abraham replied, “Because I thought, ‘Surely no one fears God in this place. They will kill me because of my wife.’
20:12 What’s more, she is indeed my sister, my father’s daughter, but not my mother’s daughter. She became my wife.
20:13 When God made me wander from my father’s house, I told her, ‘This is what you can do to show your loyalty to me: Every place we go, say about me, “He is my brother.”’”
20:14 So Abimelech gave sheep, cattle, and male and female servants to Abraham. He also gave his wife Sarah back to him.
20:15 Then Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you; live wherever you please.”
20:16 To Sarah he said, “Look, I have given a thousand pieces of silver to your ‘brother.’ This is compensation for you so that you will stand vindicated before all who are with you.”
20:17 Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, as well as his wife and female slaves so that they were able to have children.
20:18 For the Lord had caused infertility to strike every woman in the household of Abimelech because he took Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
The Birth of Isaac
21:1 The Lord visited Sarah just as he had said he would and did for Sarah what he had promised.
21:2 So Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the appointed time that God had told him.
21:3 Abraham named his son – whom Sarah bore to him – Isaac.
21:4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him just as God had commanded him to do.
21:5 (Now Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.)
21:6 Sarah said, “God has made me laugh. Everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”
21:7 She went on to say, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have given birth to a son for him in his old age!”
21:8 The child grew and was weaned. Abraham prepared a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.
21:9 But Sarah noticed the son of Hagar the Egyptian – the son whom Hagar had borne to Abraham – mocking.
21:10 So she said to Abraham, “Banish that slave woman and her son, for the son of that slave woman will not be an heir along with my son Isaac!”
21:11 Sarah’s demand displeased Abraham greatly because Ishmael was his son.
21:12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be upset about the boy or your slave wife. Do all that Sarah is telling you because through Isaac your descendants will be counted.
21:13 But I will also make the son of the slave wife into a great nation, for he is your descendant too.”
21:14 Early in the morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He put them on her shoulders, gave her the child, and sent her away. So she went wandering aimlessly through the wilderness of Beer Sheba.
21:15 When the water in the skin was gone, she shoved the child under one of the shrubs.
21:16 Then she went and sat down by herself across from him at quite a distance, about a bowshot away; for she thought, “I refuse to watch the child die.” So she sat across from him and wept uncontrollably.
21:17 But God heard the boy’s voice. The angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and asked her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Don’t be afraid, for God has heard the boy’s voice right where he is crying.
21:18 Get up! Help the boy up and hold him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
21:19 Then God enabled Hagar to see a well of water. She went over and filled the skin with water, and then gave the boy a drink.
21:20 God was with the boy as he grew. He lived in the wilderness and became an archer.
21:21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother found a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
21:22 At that time Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do.
21:23 Now swear to me right here in God’s name that you will not deceive me, my children, or my descendants. Show me, and the land where you are staying, the same loyalty that I have shown you.”
21:24 Abraham said, “I swear to do this.”
21:25 But Abraham lodged a complaint against Abimelech concerning a well that Abimelech’s servants had seized.
21:26 “I do not know who has done this thing,” Abimelech replied. “Moreover, you did not tell me. I did not hear about it until today.”
21:27 Abraham took some sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech. The two of them made a treaty.
21:28 Then Abraham set seven ewe lambs apart from the flock by themselves.
21:29 Abimelech asked Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?”
21:30 He replied, “You must take these seven ewe lambs from my hand as legal proof that I dug this well.”
21:31 That is why he named that place Beer Sheba, because the two of them swore an oath there.
21:32 So they made a treaty at Beer Sheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, returned to the land of the Philistines.
21:33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer Sheba. There he worshiped the Lord, the eternal God.
21:34 So Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines for quite some time.
The Sacrifice of Isaac
22:1 Some time after these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am!” Abraham replied.
22:2 God said, “Take your son – your only son, whom you love, Isaac – and go to the land of Moriah! Offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will indicate to you.”
22:3 Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants with him, along with his son Isaac. When he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he started out for the place God had spoken to him about.
22:4 On the third day Abraham caught sight of the place in the distance.
22:5 So he said to his servants, “You two stay here with the donkey while the boy and I go up there. We will worship and then return to you.”
22:6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on his son Isaac. Then he took the fire and the knife in his hand, and the two of them walked on together.
22:7 Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father?” “What is it, my son?” he replied. “Here is the fire and the wood,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
22:8 “God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham replied. The two of them continued on together.
22:9 When they came to the place God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.
22:10 Then Abraham reached out his hand, took the knife, and prepared to slaughter his son.
22:11 But the Lord’s angel called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am!” he answered.
22:12 “Do not harm the boy!” the angel said. “Do not do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God because you did not withhold your son, your only son, from me.”
22:13 Abraham looked up and saw behind him a ram caught in the bushes by its horns. So he went over and got the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.
22:14 And Abraham called the name of that place “The Lord provides.” It is said to this day, “In the mountain of the Lord provision will be made.”
22:15 The Lord’s angel called to Abraham a second time from heaven
22:16 and said, “‘I solemnly swear by my own name,’ decrees the Lord, ‘that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,
22:17 I will indeed bless you, and I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be as countless as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the strongholds of their enemies.
22:18 Because you have obeyed me, all the nations of the earth will pronounce blessings on one another using the name of your descendants.’”
22:19 Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set out together for Beer Sheba where Abraham stayed.
22:20 After these things Abraham was told, “Milcah also has borne children to your brother Nahor –
22:21 Uz the firstborn, his brother Buz, Kemuel (the father of Aram),
22:22 Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.”
22:23 (Now Bethuel became the father of Rebekah.) These were the eight sons Milcah bore to Abraham’s brother Nahor.
22:24 His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore him children – Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.
The Death of Sarah
23:1 Sarah lived 127 years.
23:2 Then she died in Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.
23:3 Then Abraham got up from mourning his dead wife and said to the sons of Heth,
23:4 “I am a temporary settler among you. Grant me ownership of a burial site among you so that I may bury my dead.”
23:5 The sons of Heth answered Abraham,
23:6 “Listen, sir, you are a mighty prince among us! You may bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will refuse you his tomb to prevent you from burying your dead.”
23:7 Abraham got up and bowed down to the local people, the sons of Heth.
23:8 Then he said to them, “If you agree that I may bury my dead, then hear me out. Ask Ephron the son of Zohar
23:9 if he will sell me the cave of Machpelah that belongs to him; it is at the end of his field. Let him sell it to me publicly for the full price, so that I may own it as a burial site.”
23:10 (Now Ephron was sitting among the sons of Heth.) Ephron the Hethite replied to Abraham in the hearing of the sons of Heth – before all who entered the gate of his city –
23:11 “No, my lord! Hear me out. I sell you both the field and the cave that is in it. In the presence of my people I sell it to you. Bury your dead.”
23:12 Abraham bowed before the local people
23:13 and said to Ephron in their hearing, “Hear me, if you will. I pay to you the price of the field. Take it from me so that I may bury my dead there.”
23:14 Ephron answered Abraham, saying to him,
23:15 “Hear me, my lord. The land is worth 400 pieces of silver, but what is that between me and you? So bury your dead.”
23:16 So Abraham agreed to Ephron’s price and weighed out for him the price that Ephron had quoted in the hearing of the sons of Heth – 400 pieces of silver, according to the standard measurement at the time.
23:17 So Abraham secured Ephron’s field in Machpelah, next to Mamre, including the field, the cave that was in it, and all the trees that were in the field and all around its border,
23:18 as his property in the presence of the sons of Heth before all who entered the gate of Ephron’s city.
23:19 After this Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpelah next to Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan.
23:20 So Abraham secured the field and the cave that was in it as a burial site from the sons of Heth.
Proverbs 4:23
4:23 Guard your heart with all vigilance,
for from it are the sources of life.
Matthew 12:34
12:34 Offspring of vipers! How are you able to say anything good, since you are evil? For the mouth speaks from what fills the heart.
Matthew 15:16
15:16 Jesus
said, “Even after all this, are you still so foolish?