The Call of Abram

12 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Get out of your country and away from your relatives and from your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you. ² I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse anyone who dishonors you. All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you.”

⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him. Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. ⁵ Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother’s son, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to travel to the land of Canaan. Eventually they arrived in the land of Canaan. ⁶ Abram passed through the land until he came to the Oak of Moreh at the place called Shechem. The Canaanites were in the land at that time.

⁷ The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.”^[a] Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

⁸ He moved on from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent there, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and proclaimed^[b] the name of the Lord. ⁹ Abram pulled out from there and kept traveling toward the Negev.^[c]

The First Trip to Egypt

¹⁰ There was a famine in the land. So Abram went down into Egypt to stay there for a while, because the famine was severe in the land. ¹¹ As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “Look, I know that you are a beautiful woman. ¹² It might happen that when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will keep you alive. ¹³ Please say that you are my sister, so that it will go well for me because of you, and that my life may be preserved on account of you.”

¹⁴ So it happened that when Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians did see that the woman was very beautiful. ¹⁵ Pharaoh’s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. ¹⁶ He treated Abram well for her sake. Abram received sheep, cattle, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

¹⁷ But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with severe diseases^[d] because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. ¹⁸ Pharaoh summoned Abram and said, “What is this that you have done to me? Why didn’t you tell me that she was your wife? ¹⁹ Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Here is your wife. Take her and go.”

²⁰ Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning him, so they sent him on his way with his wife and all that he had.

The Promise of an Heir

15 After these events the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. He said, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”

² Abram said, “Lord God^[a] what can you give me, since I remain childless, and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³ Abram also said, “Look, you have given me no offspring, so a servant born in my house will be my heir.”

⁴ Just then, the word of the Lord came to him. God said, “This man will not be your heir, but instead one who will come out of your own body will be your heir.” ⁵ The Lord then brought him outside and said, “Now look toward the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “This is what your descendants will be like.” ⁶ Abram believed in^[b] the Lord, and the Lord credited it to him as righteousness. ⁷ He said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession.”

⁸ He said, “Lord God, how will I know that I will possess it?”

⁹ The Lord 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 Abram gathered all of these, divided them in half, and laid the two halves across from each other, but he did not divide the birds in two. ¹¹ Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

¹² When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Then terrifying, deep darkness fell on him. ¹³ The Lord said to Abram, “Know this! Your descendants will live as aliens in a land that is not theirs, and they will serve its people, who will afflict them for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will surely judge the nation that they will serve. Afterward your descendants will come out with great wealth, ¹⁵ but you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come here again, because the guilt of the Amorites is not yet full.” ¹⁷ Then when the sun had gone down and it was dark, suddenly a smoking oven and a flaming torch passed between the pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made^[c] a covenant with Abram. He said, “To your descendants I have given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates. ¹⁹ I will give you the territory of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaites, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

The Covenant of Circumcision

17 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. ² I will make my covenant between me and you, and I will make your descendants very numerous.”

³ Abram fell on his face. God spoke with him. He said, ⁴ “As for me, this is my covenant with you. You will be the father of many nations. ⁵ Your name will not be Abram anymore, but your name will be Abraham,^[a] for I have made you the father of a large group of nations. ⁶ I will make you extremely fruitful, and I will produce nations from you. Kings will come out of you. ⁷ I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you as an everlasting covenant throughout their generations. I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ⁸ I will give the land where you are living as an alien, all the land of Canaan, to you and to your descendants after you as a permanent possession. I will be their God.”

⁹ God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. ¹⁰ This is my covenant, which you shall keep, a covenant between me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. ¹¹ You shall be circumcised by cutting the foreskin off your flesh. It will be a sign of the covenant between me and you. ¹² Every boy among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised, every male throughout your generations, whether he is born in your house or purchased with money^[b] from any foreigner who is not descended from you. ¹³ Every male who is born in your house or one who is purchased with your money must be circumcised. My covenant will be marked on your flesh as an everlasting covenant. ¹⁴ The uncircumcised male who is not circumcised by removing the foreskin from his flesh, that person must be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant.”

¹⁵ God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai anymore, but her name will be Sarah.^{[c] 16} I will bless her and even give you a son by her. Yes, I will bless her, and she will be a mother of nations. Kings of many peoples will come from her.”

¹⁷ Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to someone who is one hundred years old? Will Sarah, who is ninety years old, give birth?” ¹⁸ And Abraham said to God, “Oh, let Ishmael live in your presence!”

¹⁹ But God said, “No, Sarah, your wife, will bear a son for you. You shall name him Isaac.^[d] I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

²⁰ “As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Yes, I have blessed him. I will make him fruitful and will multiply him very greatly. He will become the father of twelve chiefs, and I will make him into a great nation. ²¹ But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear for you at this set time next year.”

²² When he finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. ²³ Abraham took his son Ishmael, along with every male in Abraham’s house, all those who were born in his house, and all those who were purchased with his money, and he circumcised them by cutting off the foreskin from their flesh. He did this on that very day, just as God had said to him. ²⁴ Abraham was ninety-nine years old when the foreskin of his flesh was circumcised. ²⁵ Ishmael, his son, was thirteen years old when the foreskin of his flesh was circumcised. ²⁶ On the same day both Abraham and Ishmael, his son, were circumcised. ²⁷ All the men of his house, those born in the house as well as those purchased with money from a foreigner, were circumcised along with him.