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So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
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Abraham and Abimelek
Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar,
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and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.
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Then Abimelek called Abraham in and said, “What have you done to us? How have I wronged you that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done.”
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And Abimelek asked Abraham, “What was your reason for doing this?”
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Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’
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Then Abimelek brought sheep and cattle and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him.
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Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelek, his wife and his female slaves so they could have children again,
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for the Lord had kept all the women in Abimelek’s household from conceiving because of Abraham’s wife Sarah.
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Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.
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Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him.
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When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him.
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Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
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And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
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Hagar and Ishmael Sent Away
The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast.
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But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking,
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and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”
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The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son.
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Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.
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The Treaty at Beersheba
At that time Abimelek and Phicol the commander of his forces said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything you do.
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Abraham said, “I swear it.”
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Then Abraham complained to Abimelek about a well of water that Abimelek’s servants had seized.
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So Abraham brought sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelek, and the two men made a treaty.
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Abraham set apart seven ewe lambs from the flock,
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and Abimelek asked Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs you have set apart by themselves?”
