“So now, please let your servant remain as my lord’s slave instead of the boy. As for the boy, let him go back with his brothers.

So he ¹  said to his servants, “You two stay ²  here with the donkey while ³  the boy and I go up there. We will worship ⁴  and then return to you.” ⁵ 

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

God was with the boy as he grew. He lived in the wilderness and became an archer.

“So now, when I return to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us – his very life is bound up in his son’s life. ¹ 

But God heard the boy’s voice. ¹  The angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and asked her, “What is the matter, ²  Hagar? Don’t be afraid, for God has heard ³  the boy’s voice right where he is crying.

I will take nothing ¹  except compensation for what the young men have eaten. ²  As for the share of the men who went with me – Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre – let them take their share.”

Then Abraham ran to the herd and chose a fine, tender calf, and gave it to a servant, ¹  who quickly prepared it. ² 

Before they could lie down to sleep, ¹  all the men – both young and old, from every part of the city of Sodom – surrounded the house. ² 

Then God enabled Hagar to see a well of water. ¹  She went over and filled the skin with water, and then gave the boy a drink.

Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set out together ¹  for Beer Sheba where Abraham stayed. ² 

When the boys grew up, Esau became a skilled ¹  hunter, a man of the open fields, but Jacob was an even-tempered man, living in tents. ² 

The young man did not delay in doing what they asked ¹  because he wanted Jacob’s daughter Dinah ²  badly. (Now he was more important ³  than anyone in his father’s household.) ⁴ 

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

We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father. If he leaves his father, his father ¹  will die.’ ² 

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

Indeed, ¹  your servant pledged security for the boy with my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I will bear the blame before my father all my life.’

For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I couldn’t bear to see ¹  my father’s pain.” ² 

But God said to Abraham, “Do not be upset ¹  about the boy or your slave wife. Do ²  all that Sarah is telling ³  you because through Isaac your descendants will be counted. ⁴ 

Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. 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 ²  for the place God had spoken to him about.