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 as an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.

"And I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land where you live as a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as 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 your wife Sarai, you shall not call her by the 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 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.

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

Then Abraham took his son Ishmael, and all the slaves 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 on this very same day, as God had said to him.

So it came about, when God destroyed the cities of the surrounding area, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the destruction, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had 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."'"

Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his female slaves, so that they gave birth to 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 boy and your slave woman; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.