Parashah 3: Lekh L’kha (Get yourself out) 12:1–17:27

12 Now Adonai said to Avram, “Get yourself out of your country, away from your kinsmen and away from your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. ² I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great; and you are to be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you; and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

17 When Avram was 99 years old Adonai appeared to Avram and said to him, “I am El Shaddai [God Almighty]. Walk in my presence and be pure-hearted. ² I will make my covenant between me and you, and I will increase your numbers greatly.” ³ Avram fell on his face, and God continued speaking with him: ⁴ “As for me, this is my covenant with you: you will be the father of many nations. ⁵ Your name will no longer be Avram [exalted father], but your name will be Avraham [father of many], because I have made you the father of many nations. ⁶ I will cause you to be very fruitful. I will make nations of you, kings will descend from you.

(vii) ⁷ “I am establishing my covenant between me and you, along with your descendants after you, generation after generation, as an everlasting covenant, to be God for you and for your descendants after you. ⁸ I will give you and your descendants after you the land in which you are now foreigners, all the land of Kena‘an, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.”

¹⁶ He said, “I have sworn by myself — says Adonai — that because you have done this, because you haven’t withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will most certainly bless you; and I will most certainly increase your descendants to as many as there are stars in the sky or grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the cities of their enemies, ¹⁸ and by your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed — because you obeyed my order.”