By the seventh day God finished the work that he had been doing, and he ceased on the seventh day all the work that he had been doing.

God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he ceased all the work that he had been doing in creation.

So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.

When Abram heard that his nephew had been taken captive, he mobilized his 318 trained men who had been born in his household, and he pursued the invaders as far as Dan.

Any uncircumcised male who has not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin will be cut off from his people -- he has failed to carry out my requirement."

Abraham then took some curds and milk, along with the calf that had been prepared, and placed the food before them. They ate while he was standing near them under a tree.

I will say to a young woman, 'Please lower your jar so I may drink.' May the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac reply, 'Drink, and I'll give your camels water too.' In this way I will know that you have been faithful to my master."

After Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines happened to look out a window and observed Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug back in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after Abraham died. Isaac gave these wells the same names his father had given them.

So he named it Shibah; that is why the name of the city has been Beer Sheba to this day.

Now Rebekah had been listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went out to the open fields to hunt down some wild game and bring it back,

May he give you and your descendants the blessing he gave to Abraham so that you may possess the land God gave to Abraham, the land where you have been living as a temporary resident."

There he said to them, "I can tell that your father's attitude toward me has changed, but the God of my father has been with me.

"I have been with you for the past twenty years. Your ewes and female goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks.

If the God of my father -- the God of Abraham, the one whom Isaac fears -- had not been with me, you would certainly have sent me away empty-handed! But God saw how I was oppressed and how hard I worked, and he rebuked you last night."

He commanded them, "This is what you must say to my lord Esau: 'This is what your servant Jacob says: I have been staying with Laban until now.

then you must say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They have been sent as a gift to my lord Esau. In fact Jacob himself is behind us.'"

Please take my present that was brought to you, for God has been generous to me and I have all I need." When Jacob urged him, he took it.

So Esau said, "Let me leave some of my men with you." "Why do that?" Jacob replied. "My lord has already been kind enough to me."

Jacob's sons killed them and looted the city because their sister had been violated.

Let us go up at once to Bethel. Then I will make an altar there to God, who responded to me in my time of distress and has been with me wherever I went."

He recognized it and exclaimed, "It is my son's tunic! A wild animal has eaten him! Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!"

So she removed her widow's clothes and covered herself with a veil. She wrapped herself and sat at the entrance to Enaim which is on the way to Timnah. (She did this because she saw that she had not been given to Shelah as a wife, even though he had now grown up.)

He asked the men who were there, "Where is the cult prostitute who was at Enaim by the road?" But they replied, "There has been no cult prostitute here."

So he returned to Judah and said, "I couldn't find her. Moreover, the men of the place said, 'There has been no cult prostitute here.'"

Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt. An Egyptian named Potiphar, an official of Pharaoh and the captain of the guard, purchased him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there.

The dream was repeated to Pharaoh because the matter has been decreed by God, and God will make it happen soon.

The first disappeared and I said, "He has surely been torn to pieces." I have not seen him since.

For these past two years there has been famine in the land and for five more years there will be neither plowing nor harvesting.

Jacob said to Pharaoh, "All the years of my travels are 130. All the years of my life have been few and painful; the years of my travels are not as long as those of my ancestors."

Then he blessed Joseph and said, "May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked -- the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day,