Study Desk

(vii) "I am establishing my covenant between me and you, along with your descendants after you, generation after generation, as an everlasting covenant, to be God for you and for your descendants after you.

I will give you and your descendants after you the land in which you are now foreigners, all the land of Kena‘an, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God."

God said to Avraham, "As for you, you are to keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you, generation after generation.

God said to Avraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are not to call her Sarai [mockery]; her name is to be Sarah [princess].

Avraham said to God, "If only Yishma‘el could live in your presence!"

God answered, "No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you are to call him Yitz'chak [laughter]. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

With that, God finished speaking with Avraham and went up from him.

Avraham took Yishma‘el his son, all the slaves born in his house and all who had been bought with his money, every male among the people in Avraham's household, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin that very day, just as God had said to him.

But when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Avraham and sent Lot out, away from the destruction, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

But God came to Avimelekh in a dream one night and said to him, "You are about to die because of the woman you have taken, since she is someone's wife."

God said to him in the dream, "Yes, I know that in doing this, your heart has been pure; and I too have kept you from sinning against me. This is why I didn't let you touch her.

Avraham replied, "It was because I thought, ‘There could not possibly be any fear of God in this place, so they will kill me in order to get my wife.'

When God had me leave my father's house, I told her, ‘Do me this favor: wherever we go, say about me, "He is my brother."'"

Avraham prayed to God, and God healed Avimelekh and his wife and slave-girls, so that they could have children.

Sarah conceived and bore Avraham a son in his old age, at the very time God had said to him.

Avraham circumcised his son Yitz'chak when he was eight days old, as God had ordered him to do.

Sarah said, "God has given me good reason to laugh; now everyone who hears about it will laugh with me."

But God said to Avraham, "Don't be distressed because of the boy and your slave-girl. Listen to everything Sarah says to you, because it is your descendants through Yitz'chak who will be counted.

God heard the boy's voice, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What's wrong with you, Hagar? Don't be afraid, because God has heard the voice of the boy in his present situation.

Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went, filled the skin with water and gave the boy water to drink.