Study Desk

Then God said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years.

"As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.

"Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the wrongdoing of the Amorite is not yet complete."

Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, "You are a God who sees me"; for she said, "Have I even seen Him here and lived after He saw me?"

"As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, And you will be the father of a multitude of nations.

"No longer shall you be named Abram, But your name shall be Abraham; For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

God said further to Abraham, "Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.

"But as for an uncircumcised male, one who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant."

Then God said to Abraham, "As for your wife Sarai, you shall not call her by the name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.

But God said, "No, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

"As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation.

"Is anything too difficult for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son."

Sarah denied it, however, saying, "I did not laugh"; for she was afraid. And He said, "No, but you did laugh."

"For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him."

"Suppose there are fifty righteous people within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it?

Yet he strongly urged them, so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

for we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before the LORD that the LORD has sent us to destroy it."

So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said, "Up, get out of this place, for the LORD is destroying the city." But he appeared to his sons-in-law to be joking.

When they had brought them outside, one said, "Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the surrounding area; escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away."

"Now behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your compassion, which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, for the disaster will overtake me and I will die;