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Then Jehovah said, “My Spirit must not forever be disgraced in man, wholly evil as he is. I will give him 120 years to mend his ways.”
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And Jehovah was pleased with the sacrifice and said to himself, “I will never do it again—I will never again curse the earth, destroying all living things, even though man’s bent is always toward evil from his earliest youth, and even though he does such wicked things.
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That is why the city was called Babel (meaning “confusion”), because it was there that Jehovah confused them by giving them many languages, thus widely scattering them across the face of the earth.
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Then Jehovah appeared to Abram and said, “I am going to give this land to your descendants.” And Abram built an altar there to commemorate Jehovah’s visit.
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Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan River, well watered everywhere (this was before Jehovah destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah); the whole section was like the Garden of Eden, or like the beautiful countryside around Zoar in Egypt.
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The men of this area were unusually wicked, and sinned greatly against Jehovah.
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Then Abram moved his tent to the oaks of Mamre, near Hebron, and built an altar to Jehovah there.
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But Abram replied, “I have solemnly promised Jehovah, the supreme God, Creator of heaven and earth,
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Afterwards Jehovah spoke to Abram in a vision, and this is what he told him: “Don’t be fearful, Abram, for I will defend you. And I will give you great blessings.”
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But Abram replied, “O Lord Jehovah, what good are all your blessings when I have no son? For without a son, some other member of my household will inherit all my wealth.”
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Then Jehovah told him, “No, no one else will be your heir, for you will have a son to inherit everything you own.”
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And he told him, “I am Jehovah who brought you out of the city of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land.”
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But Abram replied, “O Lord Jehovah, how can I be sure that you will give it to me?”
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Then Jehovah told him to take a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon,
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Then Jehovah told Abram, “Your descendants will be oppressed as slaves in a foreign land for 400 years.
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So that day Jehovah made this covenant with Abram: “I have given this land to your descendants from the Wadi-el-Arish to the Euphrates River.
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Thereafter Hagar spoke of Jehovah—for it was he who appeared to her—as “the God who looked upon me,” for she thought, “I saw God and lived to tell it.”
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Abraham named the place “Jehovah provides”—and it still goes by that name to this day.
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“Swear by Jehovah, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not let my son marry one of these local girls, these Canaanites.
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“O Jehovah, the God of my master,” he prayed, “show kindness to my master Abraham and help me to accomplish the purpose of my journey.
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The man stood there a moment with head bowed, worshiping Jehovah.
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“And Jehovah has overwhelmed my master with blessings so that he is a great man among the people of his land. God has given him flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and a fortune in silver and gold, and many slaves and camels and donkeys.
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“Well, this afternoon when I came to the spring I prayed this prayer: ‘O Jehovah, the God of my master Abraham, if you are planning to make my mission a success, please guide me in this way:
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Then I bowed my head and worshiped and blessed Jehovah, the God of my master Abraham, because he had led me along just the right path to find a girl from the family of my master’s brother.
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Take her and go! Yes, let her be the wife of your master’s son, as Jehovah has directed.”
