Genesis 21

Tree of Life Version

Birth of Isaac

21 Then Adonai visited Sarah just as He had said, and Adonai did for Sarah just as He had spoken. ² So Sarah became pregnant and gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time that God had told him. ³ Abraham named his son who was born to him—whom Sarah bore for him—Isaac. ⁴ Then Abraham circumcised Isaac, his eight-day-old son, just as God had commanded him. ⁵ Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac his son was born to him.

⁶ So Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me! Everyone who hears will laugh with me.” ⁷ She also said, “Who would have said to Abraham, ‘Sarah has nursed children’? For I have given birth to a son in his old age!”

Ishmael Banished, Yet Delivered

⁸ The child grew and was weaned—Abraham made a big feast on the day Isaac was weaned. ⁹ But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian whom she had born to Abraham—making fun. ¹⁰ So she said to Abraham, “Drive out this female slave and her son, for the son of this female slave will not be an heir with my son—with Isaac.”

¹¹ Now the matter was very displeasing in Abraham’s eyes on account of his son. ¹² But God said to Abraham, “Do not be displeased about the boy and your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her voice. For through Isaac shall your seed be called. ¹³ Yet I will also make the son of the slave woman into a nation, because he is your seed.”

¹⁴ So Abraham got up early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away. She went and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

¹⁵ When the water from the skin was finished, she abandoned the child under one of the bushes. ¹⁶ Then she went and sat herself down opposite, about a bowshot away, for she had said, “I can’t bear to see the child dying!” So she sat down opposite and lifted up her voice and wept.

¹⁷ Then God heard the boy’s voice and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and He said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, because God has heard the boy’s voice where he is. ¹⁸ Get up! Lift the boy up, and hold on to him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation.”

¹⁹ Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the water skin, and gave the boy a drink.

²⁰ God was with the boy and he grew. He dwelled in the wilderness and became an archer. ²¹ He dwelled in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Covenant of Abimelech and Abraham

²² Now it came about at that same time that Abimelech—with Phicol the commander of his army—said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do. ²³ So now, make a pledge to me here, by God, that you will not violate your word with me or with my descendants or with my offspring. As I have shown loyalty to you, show the same to me, and to the land in which you have lived as an outsider.”

²⁴ Abraham said, “I make a pledge.” ²⁵ Now Abraham had rebuked Abimelech because of the well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized. ²⁶ So Abimelech said, “I don’t know who did this thing. Nor did you tell me, nor did I hear about it until today.”

²⁷ Then Abraham took a flock of sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant. ²⁸ Abraham set seven young ewe-lambs apart from the flock of sheep by themselves. ²⁹ Abimelech said to Abraham, “What do these seven ewe-lambs that you’ve set by themselves mean?”

³⁰ He said, “You are to accept the seven ewe-lambs from my hand, so that they may be a witness for me that I dug this well.” ³¹ That is why that place is named Beer-sheba, because there both of them made a pledge, ³² and they made a covenant in Beer-sheba. Then Abimelech got up, with Phicol the commander of his army, and they returned to the land of the Philistines.

³³ Then he planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba and called there on the Name of Adonai, the Everlasting God. ³⁴ He lived as an outsider in the land of the Philistines for many days.