In the fourth generation ¹  your descendants ²  will return here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its limit.” ³ 

Now Sarai, ¹  Abram’s wife, had not given birth to any children, ²  but she had an Egyptian servant ³  named Hagar. ⁴ 

that I must go down ¹  and see if they are as wicked as the outcry suggests. ²  If not, ³  I want to know.”

Now Abimelech had not gone near her. He said, “Lord, ¹  would you really slaughter an innocent nation? ² 

Silently the man watched her with interest to determine ¹  if the Lord had made his journey successful ²  or not.

When food was served, ¹  he said, “I will not eat until I have said what I want to say.” ²  “Tell us,” Laban said. ³ 

but you must go to the family of my father and to my relatives to find ¹  a wife for my son.’

Then Jacob woke up ¹  and thought, ²  “Surely the Lord is in this place, but I did not realize it!”

“It is not our custom here,” ¹  Laban replied, “to give the younger daughter in marriage ²  before the firstborn.

But if the animals were weaker, he did not set the branches there. ¹  So the weaker animals ended up belonging to Laban ²  and the stronger animals to Jacob.

Animals torn by wild beasts I never brought to you; I always absorbed the loss myself. ¹  You always made me pay for every missing animal, ²  whether it was taken by day or at night.

Then the man ¹  said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” ²  “I will not let you go,” Jacob replied, ³  “unless you bless me.” ⁴ 

But if you do not agree to our terms ¹  by being circumcised, then we will take ²  our sister ³  and depart.”

We are all the sons of one man; we are honest men! Your servants are not spies.”

(Now ¹  they did not know that Joseph could understand them, ²  for he was speaking through an interpreter.) ³ 

We have brought additional money with us to buy food. We do not know who put the money in our sacks!”

“This pile of stones and the pillar are reminders that I will not pass beyond this pile to come to harm you and that you will not pass beyond this pile and this pillar to come to harm me. ¹ 

But we replied, ‘We cannot go down there. ¹  If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go, ²  for we won’t be permitted to see the man’s face if our youngest brother is not with us.’

When that year was over, they came to him the next year and said to him, “We cannot hide from our ¹  lord that the money is used up and the livestock and the animals belong to our lord. Nothing remains before our lord except our bodies and our land.

But he did not purchase the land of the priests because the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh and they ate from their allotment that Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land.