⁵² When the servant of Abraham heard this, he bowed down and worshiped the Lord. ⁵³ Then he brought out clothing and silver and gold jewelry, and gave them to Rebecca. He also gave expensive gifts to her brother and to her mother.

⁵⁴ Then Abraham's servant and the men with him ate and drank, and spent the night there. When they got up in the morning, he said, “Let me go back to my master.”

⁵⁵ But Rebecca's brother and her mother said, “Let her stay with us a week or ten days, and then she may go.”

⁵⁶ But he said, “Don't make us stay. The Lord has made my journey a success; let me go back to my master.”

⁵⁷ They answered, “Let's call her and find out what she has to say.” ⁵⁸ So they called Rebecca and asked, “Do you want to go with this man?”

“Yes,” she answered.

⁵⁹ So they let Rebecca and her old family servant go with Abraham's servant and his men. ⁶⁰ And they gave Rebecca their blessing in these words:

⁶¹ Then Rebecca and her young women got ready and mounted the camels to go with Abraham's servant, and they all started out.

⁶² Isaac had come into the wilderness of^[a] “The Well of the Living One Who Sees Me” and was staying in the southern part of Canaan. ⁶³ He went out in the early evening to take a walk in the fields and saw camels coming. ⁶⁴ When Rebecca saw Isaac, she got down from her camel ⁶⁵ and asked Abraham's servant, “Who is that man walking toward us in the field?”

“He is my master,” the servant answered. So she took her scarf and covered her face.

⁶⁶ The servant told Isaac everything he had done. ⁶⁷ Then Isaac brought Rebecca into the tent that his mother Sarah had lived in, and she became his wife. Isaac loved Rebecca, and so he was comforted for the loss of his mother.

Other Descendants of Abraham^(A)

25 Abraham married another woman, whose name was Keturah. ² She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. ³ Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan, and the descendants of Dedan were the Asshurim, the Letushim, and the Leummim. ⁴ The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. All these were Keturah's descendants.

⁵ Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac; ⁶ but while he was still alive, he gave presents to the sons his other wives had borne him. Then he sent these sons to the land of the East, away from his son Isaac.

The Death and Burial of Abraham

^7-8 Abraham died at the ripe old age of 175. ⁹ His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in Machpelah Cave, in the field east of Mamre that had belonged to Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite. ^10 (B)It was the field that Abraham had bought from the Hittites; both Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried there. ¹¹ After the death of Abraham, God blessed his son Isaac, who lived near “The Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.”

The Descendants of Ishmael^(C)

¹² Ishmael, whom Hagar, the Egyptian slave of Sarah, bore to Abraham, ¹³ had the following sons, listed in the order of their birth: Nebaioth, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, ¹⁴ Mishma, Dumah, Massa, ¹⁵ Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. ¹⁶ They were the ancestors of twelve tribes, and their names were given to their villages and camping places. ¹⁷ Ishmael was 137 years old when he died. ¹⁸ The descendants of Ishmael lived in the territory between Havilah and Shur, to the east of Egypt on the way to Assyria. They lived apart from the other descendants of Abraham.

The Birth of Esau and Jacob

¹⁹ This is the story of Abraham's son Isaac. ²⁰ Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebecca, the daughter of Bethuel (an Aramean from Mesopotamia) and sister of Laban. ²¹ Because Rebecca had no children, Isaac prayed to the Lord for her. The Lord answered his prayer, and Rebecca became pregnant. ²² She was going to have twins, and before they were born, they struggled against each other in her womb. She said, “Why should something like this happen to me?” So she went to ask the Lord for an answer.

^23 (D)The Lord said to her,

²⁴ The time came for her to give birth, and she had twin sons. ²⁵ The first one was reddish, and his skin was like a hairy robe, so he was named Esau.^{[b] 26} The second one was born holding on tightly to the heel of Esau, so he was named Jacob.^[c] Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.

Esau Sells His Rights as the First-Born Son

²⁷ The boys grew up, and Esau became a skilled hunter, a man who loved the outdoors, but Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home. ²⁸ Isaac preferred Esau, because he enjoyed eating the animals Esau killed, but Rebecca preferred Jacob.

²⁹ One day while Jacob was cooking some bean soup, Esau came in from hunting. He was hungry ³⁰ and said to Jacob, “I'm starving; give me some of that red stuff.” (That is why he was named Edom.^[d])

³¹ Jacob answered, “I will give it to you if you give me your rights as the first-born son.”

³² Esau said, “All right! I am about to die; what good will my rights do me?”

^33 (E)Jacob answered, “First make a vow that you will give me your rights.”

Esau made the vow and gave his rights to Jacob. ³⁴ Then Jacob gave him some bread and some of the soup. He ate and drank and then got up and left. That was all Esau cared about his rights as the first-born son.

Isaac Lives at Gerar

26 There was another famine in the land besides the earlier one during the time of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar. ² The Lord had appeared to Isaac and had said, “Do not go to Egypt; stay in this land, where I tell you to stay. ^3 (F)Live here, and I will be with you and bless you. I am going to give all this territory to you and to your descendants. I will keep the promise I made to your father Abraham. ⁴ I will give you as many descendants as there are stars in the sky, and I will give them all this territory. All the nations will ask me to bless them as I have blessed your descendants. ⁵ I will bless you, because Abraham obeyed me and kept all my laws and commands.”

⁶ So Isaac lived at Gerar. ^7 (G)When the men there asked about his wife, he said that she was his sister. He would not admit that she was his wife, because he was afraid that the men there would kill him to get Rebecca, who was very beautiful. ⁸ When Isaac had been there for some time, King Abimelech looked down from his window and saw Isaac and Rebecca making love. ⁹ Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, “So she is your wife! Why did you say she was your sister?”

He answered, “I thought I would be killed if I said she was my wife.”

¹⁰ “What have you done to us?” Abimelech said. “One of my men might easily have slept with your wife, and you would have been responsible for our guilt.” ¹¹ Abimelech warned all the people: “Anyone who mistreats this man or his wife will be put to death.”

¹² Isaac sowed crops in that land, and that year he harvested a hundred times as much as he had sown, because the Lord blessed him. ¹³ He continued to prosper and became a very rich man. ¹⁴ Because he had many herds of sheep and cattle and many servants, the Philistines were jealous of him. ¹⁵ So they filled in all the wells which the servants of his father Abraham had dug while Abraham was alive.

¹⁶ Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Leave our country. You have become more powerful than we are.”

The Would-Be Followers of Jesus^(A)

¹⁸ When Jesus noticed the crowd around him, he ordered his disciples to go to the other side of the lake. ¹⁹ A teacher of the Law came to him. “Teacher,” he said, “I am ready to go with you wherever you go.”

²⁰ Jesus answered him, “Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lie down and rest.”

^21 (B)Another man, who was a disciple, said, “Sir, first let me go back and bury my father.”

²² “Follow me,” Jesus answered, “and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Jesus Calms a Storm^(C)

²³ Jesus got into a boat, and his disciples went with him. ²⁴ Suddenly a fierce storm hit the lake, and the boat was in danger of sinking. But Jesus was asleep. ²⁵ The disciples went to him and woke him up. “Save us, Lord!” they said. “We are about to die!”

²⁶ “Why are you so frightened?” Jesus answered. “What little faith you have!” Then he got up and ordered the winds and the waves to stop, and there was a great calm.

²⁷ Everyone was amazed. “What kind of man is this?” they said. “Even the winds and the waves obey him!”

Jesus Heals Two Men with Demons^(D)

²⁸ When Jesus came to the territory of Gadara on the other side of the lake, he was met by two men who came out of the burial caves there. These men had demons in them and were so fierce that no one dared travel on that road. ²⁹ At once they screamed, “What do you want with us, you Son of God? Have you come to punish us before the right time?”

³⁰ Not far away there was a large herd of pigs feeding. ³¹ So the demons begged Jesus, “If you are going to drive us out, send us into that herd of pigs.”

³² “Go,” Jesus told them; so they left and went off into the pigs. The whole herd rushed down the side of the cliff into the lake and was drowned.

³³ The men who had been taking care of the pigs ran away and went into the town, where they told the whole story and what had happened to the men with the demons. ³⁴ So everyone from the town went out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their territory.

A Prayer for Justice

^7 (A)Never let yourself think that you are wiser than you are; simply obey the Lord and refuse to do wrong. ⁸ If you do, it will be like good medicine, healing your wounds and easing your pains.