I will bless her and will give you a son through her. I will bless her and she will become a mother of nations. ¹  Kings of countries ²  will come from her!”

God said, “No, Sarah your wife is going to bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. ¹  I will confirm my covenant with him as a perpetual ²  covenant for his descendants after him.

One of them ¹  said, “I will surely return ²  to you when the season comes round again, ³  and your wife Sarah will have a son!” ⁴  (Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, not far behind him. ⁵ 

Isaac said to his father Abraham, ¹  “My father?” “What is it, ²  my son?” he replied. “Here is the fire and the wood,” Isaac said, ³  “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

Abraham looked up ¹  and saw ²  behind him ³  a ram caught in the bushes by its horns. So he ⁴  went over and got the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

Before he had finished praying, there came Rebekah ¹  with her water jug on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah (Milcah was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor). ² 

Then she will reply to me, “Drink, and I’ll draw water for your camels too.” May that woman be the one whom the Lord has chosen for my master’s son.’

Then I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She replied, ‘The daughter of Bethuel the son of Nahor, whom Milcah bore to Nahor.’ ¹  I put the ring in her nose and the bracelets on her wrists.

She became pregnant again and had another son. She said, “Now this time my husband will show me affection, ¹  because I have given birth to three sons for him.” That is why he was named Levi. ² 

All his sons and daughters stood by ¹  him to console him, but he refused to be consoled. “No,” he said, “I will go to the grave mourning my son.” ²  So Joseph’s ³  father wept for him.

Judah recognized them and said, “She is more upright ¹  than I am, because I wouldn’t give her to Shelah my son.” He did not have sexual relations with her ²  again.

Now go up to my father quickly ¹  and tell him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: “God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not delay!

Then they brought the special tunic to their father ¹  and said, “We found this. Determine now whether it is your son’s tunic or not.”

He recognized it and exclaimed, “It is my son’s tunic! A wild animal has eaten him! ¹  Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!”

When they came to the place God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there ¹  and arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up ²  his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.

The servant asked him, “What if the woman is not willing to come back with me ¹  to this land? Must I then ²  take your son back to the land from which you came?”

Then I bowed down and worshiped the Lord. I praised the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me on the right path to find the granddaughter ¹  of my master’s brother for his son.

Isaac replied to Esau, “Look! I have made him lord over you. I have made all his relatives his servants and provided him with grain and new wine. What is left that I can do for you, my son?”

When Laban heard this news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he rushed out to meet him. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Jacob ¹  told Laban how he was related to him. ² 

You are a lion’s cub, Judah, from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches and lies down like a lion; like a lioness – who will rouse him?