Genesis 12-13

New Century Version

God Calls Abram

12 The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land I will show you.

⁴ So Abram left Haran as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. At this time Abram was 75 years old. ⁵ He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and everything they owned, as well as all the servants they had gotten in Haran. They set out from Haran, planning to go to the land of Canaan, and in time they arrived there.

⁶ Abram traveled through that land as far as the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. The Canaanites were living in the land at that time. ⁷ The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” So Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. ⁸ Then he traveled from Shechem to the mountain east of Bethel and set up his tent there. Bethel was to the west, and Ai was to the east. There Abram built another altar to the Lord and worshiped him. ⁹ After this, he traveled on toward southern Canaan.

Abram Goes to Egypt

¹⁰ At this time there was not much food in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt to live because there was so little food. ¹¹ Just before they arrived in Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know you are a very beautiful woman. ¹² When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This woman is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but let you live. ¹³ Tell them you are my sister so that things will go well with me and I may be allowed to live because of you.”

¹⁴ When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was very beautiful. ¹⁵ The Egyptian officers saw her and told the king of Egypt how beautiful she was. They took her to the king’s palace, and ¹⁶ the king was kind to Abram because he thought Abram was her brother. He gave Abram sheep, cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

¹⁷ But the Lord sent terrible diseases on the king and all the people in his house because of Abram’s wife Sarai. ¹⁸ So the king sent for Abram and said, “What have you done to me? Why didn’t you tell me Sarai was your wife? ¹⁹ Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’ so that I made her my wife? Now, here is your wife. Take her and leave!” ²⁰ Then the king commanded his men to make Abram leave Egypt; so Abram and his wife left with everything they owned.

Abram and Lot Separate

13 So Abram, his wife, and Lot left Egypt, taking everything they owned, and traveled to southern Canaan. ² Abram was very rich in cattle, silver, and gold.

³ He left southern Canaan and went back to Bethel where he had camped before, between Bethel and Ai, ⁴ and where he had built an altar. So he worshiped the Lord there.

⁵ During this time Lot was traveling with Abram, and Lot also had flocks, herds, and tents. ⁶ Abram and Lot had so many animals that the land could not support both of them together, ⁷ so Abram’s herdsmen and Lot’s herdsmen began to argue. The Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land at this time.

⁸ Abram said to Lot, “There should be no arguing between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, because we are brothers. ⁹ We should separate. The whole land is there in front of you. If you go to the left, I will go to the right. If you go to the right, I will go to the left.”

¹⁰ Lot looked all around and saw the whole Jordan Valley and that there was much water there. It was like the Lord’s garden, like the land of Egypt in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) ¹¹ So Lot chose to move east and live in the Jordan Valley. In this way Abram and Lot separated. ¹² Abram lived in the land of Canaan, but Lot lived among the cities in the Jordan Valley, very near to Sodom. ¹³ Now the people of Sodom were very evil and were always sinning against the Lord.

¹⁴ After Lot left, the Lord said to Abram, “Look all around you—to the north and south and east and west. ¹⁵ All this land that you see I will give to you and your descendants forever. ¹⁶ I will make your descendants as many as the dust of the earth. If anyone could count the dust on the earth, he could count your people. ¹⁷ Get up! Walk through all this land because I am now giving it to you.”

¹⁸ So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at the city of Hebron. There he built an altar to the Lord.