Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Abram Returns to Canaan

13 So Abram left Egypt. He traveled through the Negev with his wife and everything he owned. Lot was also with them. ² At this time Abram was very rich. He had many animals and much silver and gold.

³ Abram continued traveling around. He left the Negev and went back to Bethel. He went to the place between the city of Bethel and Ai,^[a] where he and his family had camped before. ⁴ This was where Abram had built an altar earlier. So he worshiped the Lord there.

Abram and Lot Separate

⁵ During this time Lot was also traveling with Abram. Lot had many animals and tents. ⁶ Abram and Lot had so many animals that the land could not support both of them together. ⁷ (The Canaanites and the Perizzites were also living in this land at the same time.) The shepherds of Abram and Lot began to argue.

⁸ So Abram said to Lot, “There should be no arguing between you and me or between your people and my people. We are all brothers. ⁹ We should separate. You can choose any place you want. If you go to the left, I will go to the right. If you go to the right, I will go to the left.”

¹⁰ Lot looked and saw the whole Jordan Valley. He saw that there was much water there. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. At that time the Jordan Valley all the way to Zoar was like the Lord’s Garden. This was good land, like the land of Egypt.) ¹¹ So Lot chose to live in the Jordan Valley. The two men separated, and Lot began traveling east. ¹² Abram stayed in the land of Canaan, and Lot lived among the cities in the valley. Lot moved as far as Sodom and made his camp there. ¹³ The Lord knew that the people of Sodom were very evil sinners.

¹⁴ After Lot left, the Lord said to Abram, “Look around you. Look north, south, east, west. ¹⁵ All this land that you see I will give to you and your people who live after you. This will be your land forever. ¹⁶ I will make your people so many that they will be like the dust of the earth. If people could count all the particles of dust on earth, they could count your people. ¹⁷ So go. Walk through your land. I now give it to you.”

¹⁸ So Abram moved his tents. He went to live near the big trees of Mamre. This was near the city of Hebron. There he built an altar to honor the Lord.

¹⁷ These false teachers are like springs that have no water. They are like clouds that are blown by a storm. A place in the deepest darkness has been kept for them. ¹⁸ They boast with words that mean nothing. They lead people into the trap of sin. They find people who have just escaped from a wrong way of life and lead them back into sin. They do this by using the evil things people want to do in their human weakness. ¹⁹ These false teachers promise those people freedom, but they themselves are not free. They are slaves to a mind that has been ruined by sin. Yes, people are slaves to anything that controls them.

²⁰ People can be made free from the evil in the world. They can be made free by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But if they go back into those evil things and are controlled by them, then it is worse for them than it was before. ²¹ Yes, it would be better for them to have never known the right way. That would be better than to know the right way and then to turn away from the holy teaching that was given to them. ²² What they did is like these true sayings: “A dog vomits and goes back to what it threw up.”^[a] And, “After a pig is washed, it goes back and rolls in the mud again.”