Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Praise to the Creator and Preserver.

Abram and Lot

13 So Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot [his nephew] with him, into the Negev (the South country of Judah).

² Now Abram was extremely rich in livestock and in silver and in gold. ³ He journeyed on from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, ⁴ where he had first built an altar; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord [in prayer].^{(A) 5} But Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. ⁶ Now the land was not able to support them [that is, sustain all their grazing and water needs] while they lived near one another, for their possessions were too great for them to stay together. ⁷ And there was strife and quarreling between the herdsmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle. Now the Canaanite and the Perizzite were living in the land at that same time [making grazing of the livestock difficult].

⁸ So Abram said to Lot, “Please let there be no strife and disagreement between you and me, nor between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, because we are relatives. ⁹ Is not the entire land before you? Please separate [yourself] from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or if you choose the right, then I will go to the left.” ¹⁰ So Lot looked and saw that the valley of the Jordan was well watered everywhere—this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; [it was all] like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar [at the south end of the Dead Sea]. ¹¹ Then Lot chose for himself all the valley of the Jordan, and he traveled east. So they separated from each other. ¹² Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot settled in the cities of the valley and camped as far as Sodom and lived there. ¹³ But the men of Sodom were extremely wicked and sinful against the Lord [unashamed in their open sin before Him].

¹⁴ The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had left him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are standing, northward and southward and eastward and westward; ¹⁵ for all the land which you see I will give to you and to your descendants forever.^{(B) 16} I will make your descendants [as numerous] as the dust of the earth, so that if a man could count the [grains of] dust of the earth, then your descendants could also be counted.^{(C) 17} Arise, walk (make a thorough reconnaissance) around in the land, through its length and its width, for I will give it to you.” ¹⁸ Then Abram broke camp and moved his tent, and came and settled by the [grove of the great] terebinths (oak trees) of Mamre [the Amorite], which are in Hebron, and there he built an altar to [honor] the Lord.

¹⁷ These [false teachers] are springs without water and mists driven by a tempest, for whom is reserved the gloom of black darkness. ¹⁸ For uttering arrogant words of vanity [pompous words disguised to sound scholarly or profound, but meaning nothing and containing no spiritual truth], they beguile and lure using lustful desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error. ¹⁹ They promise them liberty, when they themselves are the slaves of depravity—for by whatever anyone is defeated and overcome, to that [person, thing, philosophy, or concept] he is continually enslaved. ²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world by [personal] knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, their last condition has become worse for them than the first. ²¹ For it would have been better for them not to have [personally] known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to have turned back from the holy commandment [verbally] handed on to them. ²² The thing spoken of in the true proverb has happened to them, “The dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “A sow is washed only to wallow [again] in the mire.”^(A)