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and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.
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So Abram went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he pitched his tents. There he built an altar to the Lord.
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Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.
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That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
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“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There, in the tent,” he said.
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What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?
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what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?” “If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”
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Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?” He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”
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Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?” He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”
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Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?” He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”
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Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”
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Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.
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“My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”
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But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.)
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Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord.
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One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth.
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Abraham and Abimelek
Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar,
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and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.
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Early the next morning Abimelek summoned all his officials, and when he told them all that had happened, they were very much afraid.
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Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’
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Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.
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Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she began to sob.
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God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.
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So that place was called Beersheba, because the two men swore an oath there.
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Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Eternal God.
