Study Desk

Abram bowed down with his face touching the ground, and God said,

"I will keep my promise to you and to your descendants in future generations as an everlasting covenant. I will be your God and the God of your descendants.

I will give to you and to your descendants this land in which you are now a foreigner. The whole land of Canaan will belong to your descendants forever, and I will be their God."

God said to Abraham, "You also must agree to keep the covenant with me, both you and your descendants in future generations.

God said to Abraham, "You must no longer call your wife Sarai; from now on her name is Sarah.

He asked God, "Why not let Ishmael be my heir?"

But God said, "No. Your wife Sarah will bear you a son and you will name him Isaac. I will keep my covenant with him and with his descendants forever. It is an everlasting covenant.

When God finished speaking to Abraham, he left him.

On that same day Abraham obeyed God and circumcised his son Ishmael and all the other males in his household, including the slaves born in his home and those he had bought.

But when God destroyed the cities of the valley where Lot was living, he kept Abraham in mind and allowed Lot to escape to safety.

One night God appeared to him in a dream and said, "You are going to die, because you have taken this woman; she is already married."

God replied in the dream, "Yes, I know that you did it with a clear conscience; so I kept you from sinning against me and did not let you touch her.

Abraham answered, "I thought that there would be no one here who has reverence for God and that they would kill me to get my wife.

So when God sent me from my father's house into foreign lands, I said to her, ‘You can show how loyal you are to me by telling everyone that I am your brother.'"

Because of what had happened to Sarah, Abraham's wife, the Lord had made it impossible for any woman in Abimelech's palace to have children. So Abraham prayed for Abimelech, and God healed him. He also healed his wife and his slave women, so that they could have children.

and she became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham when he was old. The boy was born at the time God had said he would be born.

and when Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded.

Sarah said, "God has brought me joy and laughter. Everyone who hears about it will laugh with me."

But God said to Abraham, "Don't be worried about the boy and your slave Hagar. Do whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that you will have the descendants I have promised.

God heard the boy crying, and from heaven the angel of God spoke to Hagar, "What are you troubled about, Hagar? Don't be afraid. God has heard the boy crying.