Study Desk

Then God said to Abraham, "As for your wife, you must no longer call her Sarai; Sarah will be her name.

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

As for Ishmael, I have heard you. I will indeed bless him, make him fruitful, and give him a multitude of descendants. He will become the father of twelve princes; I will make him into a great nation.

Is anything impossible for the Lord ? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son."

What if there are fifty godly people in the city? Will you really wipe it out and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty godly people who are in it?

So the Lord replied, "If I find in the city of Sodom fifty godly people, I will spare the whole place for their sake."

Abraham spoke to him again, "What if forty are found there?" He replied, "I will not do it for the sake of the forty."

Abraham said, "Since I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty are found there?" He replied, "I will not destroy it for the sake of the twenty."

Finally Abraham said, "May the Lord not be angry so that I may speak just once more. What if ten are found there?" He replied, "I will not destroy it for the sake of the ten."

But he urged them persistently, so they turned aside with him and entered his house. He prepared a feast for them, including bread baked without yeast, and they ate.

Look, I have two daughters who have never had sexual relations with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do to them whatever you please. Only don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."

When they had brought them outside, they said, "Run for your lives! Don't look behind you or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains or you will be destroyed!"

Run there quickly, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there." (This incident explains why the town was called Zoar.)

Abraham said about his wife Sarah, "She is my sister." So Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent for Sarah and took her.

But God appeared to Abimelech in a dream at night and said to him, "You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken, for she is someone else's wife."

But now give back the man's wife. Indeed he is a prophet and he will pray for you; thus you will live. But if you don't give her back, know that you will surely die along with all who belong to you."

To Sarah he said, "Look, I have given a thousand pieces of silver to your ‘brother.' This is compensation for you so that you will stand vindicated before all who are with you."

For the Lord had caused infertility to strike every woman in the household of Abimelech because he took Sarah, Abraham's wife.

The Lord visited Sarah just as he had said he would and did for Sarah what he had promised.

She went on to say, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have given birth to a son for him in his old age!"