But the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’

Is anything impossible for the Lord? At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.”

What if there are 50 righteous people in the city? Will You really sweep it away instead of sparing the place for the sake of the 50 righteous people who are in it?

You could not possibly do such a thing: to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. You could not possibly do that! Won’t the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

The Lord said, “If I find 50 righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Then he spoke to Him again, “Suppose 40 are found there?”

He answered, “I will not do it on account of 40.”

Then he said, “Since I have ventured to speak to the Lord, suppose 20 are found there?”

He replied, “I will not destroy it on account of 20.”

Then he said, “Let the Lord not be angry, and I will speak one more time. Suppose 10 are found there?”

He answered, “I will not destroy it on account of 10.”

When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, He departed, and Abraham returned to his place.

The two angels entered Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting at Sodom’s gate. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them. He bowed with his face to the ground

and said, “My lords, turn aside to your servant’s house, wash your feet, and spend the night. Then you can get up early and go on your way.”

“No,” they said. “We would rather spend the night in the square.”

“Get out of the way!” they said, adding, “This one came here as a foreigner, but he’s acting like a judge! Now we’ll do more harm to you than to them.” They put pressure on Lot and came up to break down the door.

Then the angels said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here: a son-in-law, your sons and daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of this place,

So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were going to marry his daughters. “Get up,” he said. “Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

At daybreak the angels urged Lot on: “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.”

As soon as the angels got them outside, one of them said, “Run for your lives! Don’t look back and don’t stop anywhere on the plain! Run to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”

Your servant has indeed found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness by saving my life. But I can’t run to the mountains; the disaster will overtake me, and I will die.

The sun had risen over the land when Lot reached Zoar.

Then out of the sky the Lord rained burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord.

He demolished these cities, the entire plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and whatever grew on the ground.

Early in the morning Abraham went to the place where he had stood before the Lord.

So it was, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, He remembered Abraham and brought Lot out of the middle of the upheaval when He demolished the cities where Lot had lived.

Lot departed from Zoar and lived in the mountains along with his two daughters, because he was afraid to live in Zoar. Instead, he and his two daughters lived in a cave.

Then the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to sleep with us as is the custom of all the land.

Come, let’s get our father to drink wine so that we can sleep with him and preserve our father’s line.”

So they got their father to drink wine that night, and the firstborn came and slept with her father; he did not know when she lay down or when she got up.

The next day the firstborn said to the younger, “Look, I slept with my father last night. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight so you can go sleep with him and we can preserve our father’s line.”

That night they again got their father to drink wine, and the younger went and slept with him; he did not know when she lay down or when she got up.

From there Abraham traveled to the region of the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he lived in Gerar,

But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “You are about to die because of the woman you have taken, for she is a married woman.”

Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience. I have also kept you from sinning against Me. Therefore I have not let you touch her.

Early in the morning Abimelech got up, called all his servants together, and personally told them all these things, and the men were terrified.

Then Abimelech called Abraham in and said to him, “What have you done to us? How did I sin against you that you have brought such enormous guilt on me and on my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done.”

Abimelech also said to Abraham, “What did you intend when you did this thing?”

Abraham replied, “I thought, ‘There is absolutely no fear of God in this place. They will kill me because of my wife.’

So when God had me wander from my father’s house, I said to her: Show your loyalty to me wherever we go and say about me: ‘He’s my brother.’”

for the Lord had completely closed all the wombs in Abimelech’s household on account of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time God had told him.

Abraham named his son who was born to him—the one Sarah bore to him—Isaac.

When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him.

Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

She also said, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne a son for him in his old age.”

The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.

But Sarah saw the son mocking—the one Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham.

Early in the morning Abraham got up, took bread and a waterskin, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her and the boy away. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beer-sheba.

When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes.

God was with the boy, and he grew; he settled in the wilderness and became an archer.

He settled in the Wilderness of Paran, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

At that time Abimelech, accompanied by Phicol the commander of his army, said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything you do.

Swear to me by God here and now, that you will not break an agreement with me or with my children and descendants. As I have been loyal to you, so you will be loyal to me and to the country where you are a foreign resident.”

Therefore that place was called Beer-sheba because it was there that the two of them swore an oath.

Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and there he called on the name of Yahweh, the Everlasting God.

And Abraham lived as a foreigner in the land of the Philistines for many days.

“Take your son,” He said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

So Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took with him two of his young men and his son Isaac. He split wood for a burnt offering and set out to go to the place God had told him about.

On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac. In his hand he took the fire and the sacrificial knife, and the two of them walked on together.

Abraham answered, “God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Then the two of them walked on together.

When they arrived at the place that God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.

Then He said, “Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from Me.”

Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.

And Abraham named that place The Lord Will Provide, so today it is said: “It will be provided on the Lord’s mountain.”

I will indeed bless you and make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your offspring will possess the gates of their enemies.

Abraham went back to his young men, and they got up and went together to Beer-sheba. And Abraham settled in Beer-sheba.

Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.

“Listen to us, lord. You are God’s chosen one among us. Bury your dead in our finest burial place. None of us will withhold from you his burial place for burying your dead.”

He said to them, “If you are willing for me to bury my dead, listen to me and ask Ephron son of Zohar on my behalf

to give me the cave of Machpelah that belongs to him; it is at the end of his field. Let him give it to me in your presence, for the full price, as a burial place.”

Ephron was sitting among the Hittites. So in the presence of all the Hittites who came to the gate of his city, Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham:

“No, my lord. Listen to me. I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead.”

and said to Ephron in the presence of the people of the land, “Please listen to me. Let me pay the price of the field. Accept it from me, and let me bury my dead there.”

Abraham agreed with Ephron, and Abraham weighed out to Ephron the silver that he had agreed to in the presence of the Hittites: 400 shekels of silver at the current commercial rate.

Abraham’s possession in the presence of all the Hittites who came to the gate of his city.

After this, Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave of the field at Machpelah near Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan.

Abraham was now old, getting on in years, and the Lord had blessed him in everything.

So the servant placed his hand under his master Abraham’s thigh and swore an oath to him concerning this matter.

The servant took 10 of his master’s camels and departed with all kinds of his master’s goods in hand. Then he set out for Nahor’s town Aram-naharaim.

He made the camels kneel beside a well of water outside the town at evening. This was the time when the women went out to draw water.

Let the girl to whom I say, ‘Please lower your water jug so that I may drink,’ and who responds, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels also’—let her be the one You have appointed for Your servant Isaac. By this I will know that You have shown kindness to my master.”

Before he had finished speaking, there was Rebekah—daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor—coming with a jug on her shoulder.

When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I’ll also draw water for your camels until they have had enough to drink.”

“Whose daughter are you?” he asked. “Please tell me, is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?”

and said, “Praise the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not withheld His kindness and faithfulness from my master. As for me, the Lord has led me on the journey to the house of my master’s relatives.”

As soon as he had seen the ring and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and when he had heard his sister Rebekah’s words—“The man said this to me!”—he went to the man. He was standing there by the camels at the spring.

A meal was set before him, but he said, “I will not eat until I have said what I have to say.”

So Laban said, “Please speak.”

Sarah, my master’s wife, bore a son to my master in her old age, and he has given him everything he owns.

My master put me under this oath: ‘You will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites in whose land I live

“Today when I came to the spring, I prayed: Lord, God of my master Abraham, if only You will make my journey successful!

“Before I had finished praying silently, there was Rebekah coming with her jug on her shoulder, and she went down to the spring and drew water. So I said to her: Please let me have a drink.

Then I asked her: Whose daughter are you? She responded, ‘The daughter of Bethuel son of Nahor, whom Milcah bore to him.’ So I put the ring on her nose and the bracelets on her wrists.

Then I bowed down, worshiped the Lord, and praised the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who guided me on the right way to take the granddaughter of my master’s brother for his son.

Laban and Bethuel answered, “This is from the Lord; we have no choice in the matter.

Rebekah is here in front of you. Take her and go, and let her be a wife for your master’s son, just as the Lord has spoken.”

When Abraham’s servant heard their words, he bowed to the ground before the Lord.

Then he and the men with him ate and drank and spent the night.

When they got up in the morning, he said, “Send me to my master.”

Now Isaac was returning from Beer-lahai-roi, for he was living in the Negev region.

In the early evening Isaac went out to walk in the field, and looking up he saw camels coming.

Rebekah looked up, and when she saw Isaac, she got down from her camel

and asked the servant, “Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?”

The servant answered, “It is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself.

His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite.