The Call of Abram

12 Now ^(A)the Lord said^[a] to Abram, “Go from your country^[b] and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

⁸ By faith ^(A)Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place ^(B)that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

² And Stephen said:

^(A)“Brothers and fathers, hear me. ^(B)The God ^(C)of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, ^(D)before he lived in Haran, ³ and said to him, ^(E)‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’ ^4 (F)Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And ^(G)after his father died, ^(H)God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. ⁵ Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised ^(I)to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, ^(J)though he had no child. ⁶ And God spoke to this effect—that ^(K)his offspring would ^(L)be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them ^(M)four hundred years.

^26 (A)“If anyone comes to me and ^(B)does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, ^(C)yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ^27 (D)Whoever does not ^(E)bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸ For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not ^(F)first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not ^(G)sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³² And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. ^33 (H)So therefore, any one of you who ^(I)does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

⁷ You are the Lord, the God ^(A)who chose Abram and brought him out of ^(B)Ur of the Chaldeans ^(C)and gave him the name Abraham.

² And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, ^(A)your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates,^[a] Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and ^(B)they served other gods. ^3 (C)Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River^[b] and ^(D)led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many. ^(E)I gave him Isaac.

³¹ Terah ^(A)took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together ^(B)from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. ³² The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.

^24 (A)“Son of man, the inhabitants of these ^(B)waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, ^(C)‘Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land; but ^(D)we are many; the land is surely given us to possess.’