God's Covenant with Abram

15 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: ^(A)“Fear not, Abram, I am ^(B)your shield; your reward shall be very great.” ² But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue^[a] childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³ And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and ^(C)a member of my household will be my heir.” ⁴ And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; ^(D)your very own son^[b] shall be your heir.” ⁵ And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and ^(E)number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, ^(F)“So shall your offspring be.” ⁶ And ^(G)he believed the Lord, and ^(H)he counted it to him as righteousness.

⁷ And he said to him, “I am the Lord who ^(I)brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans ^(J)to give you this land to possess.” ⁸ But he said, “O Lord God, ^(K)how am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹ He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ And he brought him all these, ^(L)cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But ^(M)he did not cut the birds in half. ¹¹ And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹² As the sun was going down, a ^(N)deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain ^(O)that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and ^(P)they will be afflicted for ^(Q)four hundred years. ¹⁴ But ^(R)I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward ^(S)they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; ^(T)you shall be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶ And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for ^(U)the iniquity of the Amorites ^(V)is not yet complete.”

¹⁷ When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ^(W)“To your offspring I give^[c] this land, from ^(X)the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

Sarai and Hagar

16 ^(Y)Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was ^(Z)Hagar. ² And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children^[d] by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³ So, after Abram ^(AA)had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. ⁴ And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, ^(AB)she looked with contempt on her mistress.^{[e] 5} And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May ^(AC)the Lord judge between you and me!” ⁶ But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

⁷ The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to ^(AD)Shur. ⁸ And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” ⁹ The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” ¹⁰ The angel of the Lord also said to her, ^(AE)“I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” ¹¹ And the angel of the Lord said to her,

¹³ So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,”^[g] for she said, ^(AI)“Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”^{[h] 14} Therefore the well was called ^(AJ)Beer-lahai-roi;^[i] it lies between ^(AK)Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵ And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

Lead Me in Your Righteousness

To the choirmaster: for the flutes. A Psalm of David.

Lay Up Treasures in Heaven

^19 (A)“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where ^(B)moth and rust^[a] destroy and where thieves ^(C)break in and steal, ^20 (D)but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

^22 (E)“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, ^23 (F)but if ^(G)your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

^24 (H)“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and ^(I)money.^[b]

Do Not Be Anxious

^25 (J)“Therefore I tell you, ^(K)do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ^26 (L)Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. ^(M)Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his ^(N)span of life?^{[c] 28} And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, ^(O)even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, ^(P)O you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For ^(Q)the Gentiles seek after all these things, and ^(R)your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But ^(S)seek first ^(T)the kingdom of God and his righteousness, ^(U)and all these things will be added to you.

^34 (V)“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.