<p class="bodytext">&#8220;So now, please let your servant remain as my lord&#8217;s slave instead of the boy. As for the boy, let him go back with his brothers.

So he<n id="1" /> said to his servants, &#8220;You two stay<n id="2" /> here with the donkey while<n id="3" /> the boy and I go up there. We will worship<n id="4" /> and then return to you.&#8221;<n id="5" />p>

Get up! Help the boy up and hold him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.&#8221;

<p class="bodytext">God was with the boy as he grew. He lived in the wilderness and became an archer.

<p class="bodytext">&#8220;So now, when I return to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us &#8211; his very life is bound up in his son&#8217;s life.<n id="1" />

<p class="bodytext">But God heard the boy&#8217;s voice.<n id="1" /> The angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and asked her, &#8220;What is the matter,<n id="2" /> Hagar? Don&#8217;t be afraid, for God has heard<n id="3" /> the boy&#8217;s voice right where he is crying.

I will take nothing<n id="1" /> except compensation for what the young men have eaten.<n id="2" /> As for the share of the men who went with me &#8211; Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre &#8211; let them take their share.&#8221;p>

Then Abraham ran to the herd and chose a fine, tender calf, and gave it to a servant,<n id="1" /> who quickly prepared it.<n id="2" />

Before they could lie down to sleep,<n id="1" /> all the men &#8211; both young and old, from every part of the city of Sodom &#8211; surrounded the house.<n id="2" />

Then God enabled Hagar to see a well of water.<n id="1" /> She went over and filled the skin with water, and then gave the boy a drink.p>

<p class="bodytext">Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set out together<n id="1" /> for Beer Sheba where Abraham stayed.<n id="2" />p>

<p class="bodytext">When the boys grew up, Esau became a skilled<n id="1" /> hunter, a man of the open fields, but Jacob was an even-tempered man, living in tents.<n id="2" />

The young man did not delay in doing what they asked<n id="1" /> because he wanted Jacob&#8217;s daughter Dinah<n id="2" /> badly. (Now he was more important<n id="3" /> than anyone in his father&#8217;s household.)<n id="4" />

Now a young man, a Hebrew, a servant<n id="1" /> of the captain of the guards,<n id="2" /> was with us there. We told him our dreams,<n id="3" /> and he interpreted the meaning of each of our respective dreams for us.<n id="4" />

We said to my lord, &#8216;The boy cannot leave his father. If he leaves his father, his father<n id="1" /> will die.&#8217;<n id="2" />

When he sees the boy is not with us,<n id="1" /> he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hair of your servant our father in sorrow to the grave.

Indeed,<n id="1" /> your servant pledged security for the boy with my father, saying, &#8216;If I do not bring him back to you, then I will bear the blame before my father all my life.&#8217;p>

For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I couldn&#8217;t bear to see<n id="1" /> my father&#8217;s pain.&#8221;<n id="2" />p>

But God said to Abraham, &#8220;Do not be upset<n id="1" /> about the boy or your slave wife. Do<n id="2" /> all that Sarah is telling<n id="3" /> you because through Isaac your descendants will be counted.<n id="4" />

<p class="bodytext">Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey.<n id="1" /> 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<n id="2" /> for the place God had spoken to him about.p>