Study Desk

Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless.

Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying,

"I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.

"I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God."

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

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

And Abraham said to God, "Oh that Ishmael might live before You!"

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

When He finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.

Then Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all the servants who were born in his house and all who were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's household, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the very same day, as God had said to him.

Thus it came about, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, "Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is married."

Then God said to him in the dream, "Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.

Abraham said, "Because I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.

and it came about, when God caused me to wander from my father's house, that I said to her, 'This is the kindness which you will show to me: everywhere we go, say of me, "He is my brother."'"

Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maids, so that they bore children.

So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him.

Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.

Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me."

But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.