then I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures of all kinds. Never again will the waters become a flood and destroy all living things.

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household to the land that I will show you.

So tell them you are my sister so that it may go well for me because of you and my life will be spared on account of you.”

After Lot had departed, the Lord said to Abram, “Look from the place where you stand to the north, south, east, and west.

But Abram said, “O sovereign Lord, what will you give me since I continue to be childless, and my heir is Eliezer of Damascus?”

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!”

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.

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.

“I am a temporary settler among you. Grant me ownership of a burial site among you so that I may bury my dead.”

He made the camels kneel down by the well outside the city. It was evening, the time when the women would go out to draw water.

He prayed, “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, guide me today. Be faithful to my master Abraham.

Now, if you will show faithful love to my master, tell me. But if not, tell me as well, so that I may go on my way.”

Ishmael lived a total of 137 years. He breathed his last and died; then he joined his ancestors.

But the children struggled inside her, and she said, “If it is going to be like this, I’m not so sure I want to be pregnant!” So she asked the Lord,

That day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. “We’ve found water,” they reported.

Now Rebekah had been listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went out to the open fields to hunt down some wild game and bring it back,

Then Rachel said, “I have fought a desperate struggle with my sister, but I have won.” So she named him Naphtali.

“What have you done?” Laban demanded of Jacob. “You’ve deceived me and carried away my daughters as if they were captives of war!

“I have been with you for the past twenty years. Your ewes and female goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks.

He also gave these instructions to the second and third servants, as well as all those who were following the herds, saying, “You must say the same thing to Esau when you meet him.