He said, "My lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by and leave your servant.

All this will come to pass because Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws."

"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.

"This pile of stones and the pillar are reminders that I will not pass beyond this pile to come to harm you and that you will not pass beyond this pile and this pillar to come to harm me.

He entrusted them to his servants, who divided them into herds. He told his servants, "Pass over before me, and keep some distance between one herd and the next."

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