Study Desk

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

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

God said, "No, but Sarah, your wife, will bear you a son. You shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him.

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

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

It happened, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, 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 a man's wife."

God said to him in the dream, "Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also withheld you from sinning against me. Therefore I didn't allow you to touch her.

Abraham said, "Because I thought, 'Surely the fear of God is not in this place. They will kill me for my wife's sake.'

It happened, when God caused me to wander from my father's house, that I said to her, 'This is your kindness which you shall show to me. Everywhere that we go, say of me, "He is my brother."'"

Abraham prayed to God. God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maid-servants, and they bore children.

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

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

Sarah said, "God has made me laugh. Everyone who hears will laugh with me."

God said to Abraham, "Don't let it be grievous in your sight because of the boy, and because of your handmaid. In all that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice. For from Isaac will your seed be called.

God heard the voice of the boy. The angel of God called to Hagar out of the sky, and said to her, "What ails you, Hagar? Don't be afraid. For God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.

God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went, filled the bottle with water, and gave the boy drink.

God was with the boy, and he grew. He lived in the wilderness, and became, as he grew up, an archer.

It happened at that time, that Abimelech and Phicol the captain of his host spoke to Abraham, saying, "God is with you in all that you do.

Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son. But according to the kindness that I have done to you, you shall do to me, and to the land in which you have sojourned."