18 Now the Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks or terebinths of Mamre; as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day,

² He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood at a little distance from him. He ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the ground

³ And said, My lord, if now I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant, I beg of you.

⁴ Let a little water be brought, and you may wash your feet and recline and rest yourselves under the tree.

⁵ And I will bring a morsel (mouthful) of bread to refresh and sustain your hearts before you go on further—for that is why you have come to your servant. And they replied, Do as you have said.

⁶ So Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah and said, Quickly get ready three measures of fine meal, knead it, and bake cakes.

⁷ And Abraham ran to the herd and brought a calf tender and good and gave it to the young man [to butcher]; then he [Abraham] hastened to prepare it.

⁸ And he took curds and milk and the calf which he had made ready, and set it before [the men]; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

⁹ And they said to him, Where is Sarah your wife? And he said, [She is here] in the tent.

^10 [a][The Lord] said, I will surely return to you when the season comes round, and behold, Sarah your wife will have a son. And Sarah was listening and heard it at the tent door which was behind Him.^(A)

¹¹ Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in years; it had ceased to be with Sarah as with [young] women. [She was past the age of childbearing].

¹² Therefore Sarah laughed to herself, saying, After I have become aged shall I have pleasure and delight, my lord (husband), being old also?^(B)

¹³ And the Lord asked Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I really bear a child when I am so old?

¹⁴ Is anything too hard or too wonderful ^[b]for the Lord? At the appointed time, when the season [for her delivery] comes around, I will return to you and Sarah shall have borne a son.^(C)

13 And the Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.

² And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children.

³ And the ^[a]Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, Behold, you are barren and have no children, but you shall become pregnant and bear a son.

⁴ Therefore beware and drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean.

⁵ For behold, you shall become pregnant and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from birth, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines.

⁶ Then the woman went and told her husband, saying, A ^[b]Man of God came to me and his face was like the face of the Angel of God, to be greatly and reverently feared. I did not ask him from where he came, and he did not tell me his name.

⁷ But he said to me, Behold, you shall become pregnant and bear a son, and now drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.

⁸ Then Manoah entreated the Lord and said, O Lord, let the Man of God whom You sent come again to us and teach us what we shall do with the child that shall be born.

⁹ And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the Angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her.

¹⁰ And the woman ran in haste and told her husband and said to him, Behold, the Man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.

¹¹ And Manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the Man and said to him, Are you the Man who spoke to this woman? And he said, I am.

¹² And Manoah said, Now when your words come true, how shall we manage the child, and what is he to do?

¹³ And the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Let the mother beware of all that I told her.

¹⁴ She may not eat of anything that comes from the grapevine, nor drink wine or strong drink nor eat any unclean thing. All that I commanded her let her observe.

¹⁵ And Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, Pray, let us detain you that we may prepare a kid for you.

¹⁶ And the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Though you detain me, I will not eat of your food, but if you make ready a burnt offering, offer it to the Lord. For Manoah did not know that he was the Angel of the Lord.

¹⁷ And Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, What is your name, so that when your words come true, we may do you honor?

¹⁸ And the Angel of the Lord said to him, Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?^(A)

¹⁹ So Manoah took the kid with the cereal offering and offered it upon a rock to the Lord, the Angel working wonders, while Manoah and his wife looked on.

²⁰ For when the flame went up toward the heavens from the altar, the Angel of the Lord ascended in the altar flame. And Manoah and his wife looked on, and they fell on their faces to the ground.

²¹ The Angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah or to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the Angel of the Lord.

²² And Manoah said to his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.

²³ But his [sensible] wife said to him, If the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not have received a burnt offering and a cereal offering from our hands, nor have shown us all these things or now have announced such things as these.

²⁴ And the woman [in due time] bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew and the Lord blessed him.

²⁵ And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in Mahaneh-dan [the camp of Dan] between Zorah and Eshtaol.

⁹ And behold, an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the glory of the Lord flashed and shone all about them, and they were terribly frightened.

¹⁰ But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people.

¹¹ For to you is born this day in the town of David a Savior, Who is Christ (the Messiah) the Lord!^(A)

¹² And this will be a sign for you [by which you will recognize Him]: you will find [^[a]after searching] a Baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.^(B)

¹³ Then suddenly there appeared with the angel an army of the troops of heaven (^[b]a heavenly knighthood), praising God and saying,

¹⁴ Glory to God in the highest [heaven], and on earth peace among men with whom He is well pleased [^[c]men of goodwill, of His favor].

¹⁵ When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing (^[d]saying) that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.

9 I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying; my conscience [enlightened and prompted] by the Holy Spirit bearing witness with me

² That I have bitter grief and incessant anguish in my heart.

³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off and banished from Christ for the sake of my brethren and instead of them, my natural kinsmen and my fellow countrymen.^(A)

⁴ For they are Israelites, and to them belong God’s adoption [as a nation] and the glorious Presence (Shekinah). With them were the special covenants made, to them was the Law given. To them [the temple] worship was revealed and [God’s own] promises announced.^(B)

⁵ To them belong the patriarchs, and as far as His natural descent was concerned, from them is the Christ, Who is exalted and supreme over all, God, blessed forever! Amen (so let it be).

⁶ However, it is not as though God’s Word had failed [coming to nothing]. For it is not everybody who is a descendant of Jacob (Israel) who belongs to [the true] Israel.

⁷ And they are not all the children of Abraham because they are by blood his descendants. No, [the promise was] Your descendants will be called and counted through the line of Isaac [though Abraham had an older son].^(C)

⁸ That is to say, it is not the children of the body [of Abraham] who are made God’s children, but it is the offspring to whom the promise applies that shall be counted [as Abraham’s true] descendants.

⁹ For this is what the promise said, About this time [next year] will I return and Sarah shall have a son.^(D)

¹⁰ And not only that, but this too: Rebecca conceived [two sons under exactly the same circumstances] by our forefather Isaac,

¹¹ And the children were yet unborn and had so far done nothing either good or evil. Even so, in order further to carry out God’s purpose of selection (election, choice), which depends not on works or what men can do, but on Him Who calls [them],

¹² It was said to her that the elder [son] should serve the younger [son].^(E)

¹³ As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated (held in ^[a]relative disregard in comparison with My feeling for Jacob).^(F)

¹⁴ What shall we conclude then? Is there injustice upon God’s part? Certainly not!

¹⁵ For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion (pity) on whom I will have compassion.^(G)