Beginning

The Call of Abram

12 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, your family, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

⁴ So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Harran. ⁵ Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had accumulated, and the people that they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan. They came to the land of Canaan.

⁶ Then Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. The Canaanites were in the land at that time. ⁷ The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

⁸ From there he continued on to a mountain to the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. ⁹ Then Abram continued his journey toward the Negev.

Abram in Egypt^(A)

¹⁰ Now there was a famine in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt to live there, for the famine was severe in the land. ¹¹ When he was getting near to Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know you are a beautiful woman. ¹² Therefore, when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ They will then kill me, but they will let you live. ¹³ Say you are my sister so that I may be treated well for your sake. Then my life will be spared because of you.”

¹⁴ So when Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was very beautiful. ¹⁵ The princes of Pharaoh saw her and commended her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into Pharaoh’s house. ¹⁶ He treated Abram well for her sake and he had sheep and livestock, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

¹⁷ But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Abram’s wife, Sarai. ¹⁸ So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, “What have you done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? ¹⁹ Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’? I might have taken her as my wife. Now here is your wife; take her and leave.” ²⁰ Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.

Abram and Lot

13 So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him. ² Abram was very wealthy in livestock, in silver and in gold.

³ He continued on his journey from the Negev and came to Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, ⁴ to the place where he first made an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.

⁵ Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. ⁶ But the land was not able to support them both dwelling together because their possessions were so great. ⁷ And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. The Canaanites and the Perizzites dwelled in the land at that time.

⁸ So Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife, I ask you, between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are close relatives. ⁹ Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me. If you will go to the left, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right, then I will go to the left.”

¹⁰ Lot lifted up his eyes, and looked at all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. ¹¹ Then Lot chose for himself the entire valley of the Jordan and journeyed east, and the two of them separated from each other. ¹² Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the valley and pitched his tent as far as Sodom. ¹³ Now the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners against the Lord.

¹⁴ After Lot had departed from him, the Lord said to Abram, “Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward. ¹⁵ All the land that you see I will give to you and to your descendants forever. ¹⁶ I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants could also be numbered. ¹⁷ Arise, and walk throughout the land across its length and its width, for I will give it to you.”

¹⁸ So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built an altar to the Lord there.

Abram Rescues Lot

14 In the days that Amraphel was king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goyim, ² they made war with Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboyim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar). ³ All these were joined together in the Valley of Siddim (that is, the Dead Sea). ⁴ For twelve years they had served Kedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled.

⁵ In the fourteenth year, Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him came and defeated the Rephaites in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzites in Ham, and the Emites in Shaveh Kiriathaim, ⁶ and the Horites in their hill country of Seir, as far as El Paran, which is by the wilderness. ⁷ Then they turned back and came to En Mishpat (that is, Kadesh) and conquered all the country of the Amalekites and also the Amorites who lived in Hazezon Tamar.

⁸ Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboyim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) came out, and they joined together in battle in the Valley of Siddim ⁹ against Kedorlaomer, the king of Elam, Tidal king of Goyim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar—four kings against five. ¹⁰ Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits, and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell in them, and the rest fled to the hill country. ¹¹ Then they took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their provisions, and departed. ¹² They also took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who lived in Sodom, and his possessions, and went their way.

¹³ Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, who was living near the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshkol and Aner, and these were allies with Abram. ¹⁴ When Abram heard that his relative was taken captive, he armed his three hundred and eighteen trained servants born in his own house, and pursued them as far as Dan. ¹⁵ During the night he divided his men to attack them and defeated them, and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus. ¹⁶ He brought back all the possessions, along with his relative Lot and his possessions, and also the women and the people.

Melchizedek Blesses Abram

¹⁷ After his return from the defeat of Kedorlaomer and the kings who had joined with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).

¹⁸ Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God Most High. ¹⁹ And he blessed him and said,

Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

²¹ The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people and take the goods for yourself.”

²² But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted up my hand to the Lord, God Most High, the Possessor of heaven and earth, ²³ that I will take nothing that is yours, not a thread or a sandal strap; lest you say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ ²⁴ I will accept only that which my men have eaten and the portion that belongs to the men who went with me, Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre. Let them take their portion.”

The Abrahamic Covenant

15 After this the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying,

² But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³ Abram said, “Since You have not given me any children, my heir is a servant born in my house.”

⁴ Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but a son that is from your own body will be your heir.” ⁵ He brought him outside and said, “Look up toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So will your descendants be.”

⁶ Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.

⁷ He also said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess^[d] it.”

⁸ But Abram said, “Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?”

⁹ So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

¹⁰ Then Abram brought all of these to Him and cut them in two and laid each piece opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in half. ¹¹ When the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and terror and a great darkness fell on him. ¹³ Then He said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will live as strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will judge the nation that they serve, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace and you will be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation, your descendants will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

¹⁷ When the sun went down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot with a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great Euphrates River— ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaites, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”