Study Desk

So all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died.

They said one to another, "Come, let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly [in a kiln, to harden and strengthen them]." So they used brick for stone [as building material], and they used tar (bitumen, asphalt) for mortar.

They said, "Come, let us build a city for ourselves, and a tower whose top will reach into the heavens, and let us make a [famous] name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered [into separate groups] and be dispersed over the surface of the entire earth [as the LORD instructed]."

"Come, let Us (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) go down and there confuse and mix up their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech."

So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the surface of the entire earth; and they stopped building the city.

So Abram departed [in faithful obedience] as the LORD had directed him; and Lot [his nephew] left with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.

Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, "I will give this land to your descendants." So Abram built an altar there to [honor] the LORD who had appeared to him.

so when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife'; and they will kill me [to acquire you], but they will let you live.

"Please tell them that you are my sister so that things will go well for me for your sake, and my life will be spared because of you."

"Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her as my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her and go!"

So Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they escorted him on his way, with his wife and all that he had.

So Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot [his nephew] with him, into the Negev (the South country of Judah).

So Abram said to Lot, "Please let there be no strife and disagreement between you and me, nor between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, because we are relatives.

So Lot looked and saw that the valley of the Jordan was well watered everywhere—this was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; [it was all] like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar [at the south end of the Dead Sea].

Then Lot chose for himself all the valley of the Jordan, and he traveled east. So they separated from each other.

"I will make your descendants [as numerous] as the dust of the earth, so that if a man could count the [grains of] dust of the earth, then your descendants could also be counted.

that I would not take anything that is yours, from a thread to a sandal strap, so you could not say, 'I [the King of Sodom] have made Abram rich.'

And the LORD brought Abram outside [his tent into the night] and said, "Look now toward the heavens and count the stars—if you are able to count them." Then He said to him, "So [numerous] shall your descendants be."

So God said to him, "Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."

So Abram brought all these to Him and cut them down the middle, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds.