Beginning

Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed

19 Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them he rose up to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. ² Then he said, “Here, my lords, please turn in to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet; and then you may rise early and go on your way.”

They said, “No, we will stay in the open square all night.”

³ But he strongly insisted, so they turned aside with him and entered his house. Then he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. ⁴ Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house. ⁵ They then called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may have relations with them.”

⁶ So Lot went out through the door to them and shut the door behind him. ⁷ Then he said, “Please, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. ⁸ Look, I have two daughters who have not been with a man. Please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

⁹ But they replied, “Stand back!” Also, they said, “This man came here as an alien, and he keeps acting like a judge. We will deal worse with you than with them.” So they pressed hard against Lot, and came close to breaking down the door.

¹⁰ But the men reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with them and shut the door. ¹¹ Then they struck the men that were at the door of the house, both small and great, with blindness so that they wore themselves out groping for the door.

¹² Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, take them out of this place! ¹³ For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has grown great before the presence of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”

¹⁴ So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, “Get up, get out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city!” But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking.

¹⁵ When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here. Otherwise you will be consumed in the punishment of the city.”

¹⁶ And while he lingered, the men took hold of his and his wife’s hands, along with the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and brought him out and set him outside the city. ¹⁷ When they had brought them out, one of them said to them, “Escape for your lives! Do not look behind you or stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountain, lest you be destroyed.”

¹⁸ Then Lot said to them, “Please, no, my lords! ¹⁹ Your servant has found grace in your eyes, and you have shown your mercy, which you have shown to me by saving my life. However, I cannot escape to the mountain. Otherwise some evil will overtake me, and I will die. ²⁰ Look, this city is close enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Please, let me escape there (is it not a little one?), and my life will be saved.”

²¹ He said to him, “I have granted your request in this matter also. I will not overthrow this city of which you have spoken. ²² Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

²³ The sun had risen over the land when Lot entered Zoar. ²⁴ Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. It was from the Lord out of heaven. ²⁵ So He overthrew those cities, all the valley, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. ²⁶ But his wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

²⁷ Now Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he stood before the Lord. ²⁸ Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley, and he saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace.

²⁹ So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the destruction, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

Lot and His Daughters

³⁰ Then Lot left Zoar, and lived in the mountains, along with his two daughters who were with him, for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. ³¹ And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to have relations with us after the manner of all the earth. ³² Let us make our father drink wine and let us lie with him, so that we may preserve the lineage of our father.”

³³ So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and had relations with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose.

³⁴ On the next day the firstborn said to the younger, “Indeed, last night I had relations with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also, so that you may go in and have relations with him, so that we may preserve the lineage of our father.” ³⁵ So they made their father drink wine that night also. Then the younger arose and lay down with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.

³⁶ Therefore both the daughters of Lot were pregnant by their father. ³⁷ The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. ³⁸ The younger also gave birth to a son and called his name Ben-Ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day.

Abraham and Abimelek^(A)

20 Abraham journeyed from there toward the Negev, settled between Kadesh and Shur, and then he sojourned in Gerar. ² Then Abraham said about Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” So Abimelek, king of Gerar, sent for her and took Sarah.

³ But God came to Abimelek in a dream by night and said to him, “You are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”

⁴ Abimelek had not gone near her, and he said, “Lord, will You slay a righteous nation? ⁵ Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and did not even she herself say, ‘He is my brother’? In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this.”

⁶ And God said to him in a dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also kept you from sinning against Me. Therefore, I did not let you touch her. ⁷ Therefore return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet and he will pray for you. Moreover, you will live. However, if you do not return her, know that you will surely die, you and all who are yours.”

⁸ So Abimelek rose early in the morning, and called all his servants and told them all these things, and the men were very afraid. ⁹ Then Abimelek called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? How have I offended you that you would bring on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done things to me that should not have been done.” ¹⁰ Then Abimelek said to Abraham, “What were you thinking of, that you did this thing?”

¹¹ Abraham said, “Because I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will slay me because of my wife. ¹² Still, indeed, she is my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother. She became my wife. ¹³ When God caused me to travel from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is your kindness which you must show me: Every place where we go, say concerning me, He is my brother.’ ”

¹⁴ Then Abimelek took sheep, oxen, and male and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and returned his wife Sarah to him. ¹⁵ Abimelek said, “My land is before you; settle wherever it pleases you.”

¹⁶ To Sarah he said, “I have given your brother a thousand shekels of silver.^[a] It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you, and before everyone you are vindicated.”

¹⁷ So Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelek, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children. ¹⁸ For the Lord had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelek because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

The Birth of Isaac

21 The Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken. ² For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time that God had spoken to him. ³ Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. ⁴ Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. ⁵ Now Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

⁶ And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh. All who hear will laugh with me.” ⁷ Also she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

Hagar and Ishmael Depart

⁸ So the child grew and was weaned. Then Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. ⁹ Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. ¹⁰ Therefore she said to Abraham, “Throw out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son, Isaac.”

¹¹ This matter was very displeasing in Abraham’s sight because of his son. ¹² But God said to Abraham, “Do not be upset concerning the boy and your slave wife. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to what she says, for in Isaac your descendants will be called. ¹³ Yet I will also make a nation of the son of the slave woman, because he is your offspring.”

¹⁴ So Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and sent her away with the child. So she departed and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.

¹⁵ When the water in the skin was gone, she placed the child under one of the shrubs. ¹⁶ Then she went and sat down across from him at a distance of about a bowshot, for she said to herself, “Let me not see the death of the child.” She sat across from him, and lifted up her voice and wept.

¹⁷ And God heard the boy’s voice. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. ¹⁸ Arise, pick up the boy and hold him in your hands, for I will make him a great nation.”

¹⁹ Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

²⁰ God was with the boy; and he grew and lived in the wilderness and became an archer. ²¹ He lived in the Wilderness of Paran, and his mother found a wife for him out of the land of Egypt.

The Treaty With Abimelek

²² Now it came to pass at that time that Abimelek and Phicol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham, saying, “God is with you in all that you do. ²³ Now therefore, swear to me by God that you will not deal deceitfully with me, or with my children, or with my descendants. Instead, according to the kindness that I have shown to you, you will show to me and to the land where you have lived.”

²⁴ Abraham said, “I will swear.”

²⁵ Then Abraham complained to Abimelek about a well of water that Abimelek’s servants had violently seized. ²⁶ And Abimelek said, “I do not know who has done this. You did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today.”

²⁷ So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelek, and the two of them made a covenant. ²⁸ Then Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. ²⁹ And Abimelek said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set by themselves?”

³⁰ And he said, “You shall take these seven ewe lambs from my hand so that they may be a witness that I have dug this well.”

³¹ Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because the two of them swore an oath there.

³² Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelek rose with Phicol, the commander of his army, and they returned to the land of the Philistines. ³³ Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. ³⁴ Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines many days.