Abraham answered, "Look, even though I am only dust and ashes, I've ventured to speak to my LORD.

As soon as he finished talking to Abraham, the LORD left and Abraham returned to where he had been sitting.

and said, "Look, my lords! Please come inside your servant's house, wash your feet, and spend the night. Then you can get up early and be on your way." But they responded, "No, we would rather spend the night in the town square."

But Lot kept urging them strongly, so they turned aside and entered his house. He prepared a festival and baked unleavened flat bread for them, and they ate.

Before they could lie down, all the men of Sodom and its outskirts, both young and old, surrounded the house.

They called out to Lot and asked, "Where are the men who came to visit you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!"

Lot went outside to them, shut the door behind him,

and said, "I urge you, my brothers, don't do such a wicked thing.

Look here, I have two daughters who are virgins. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them whatever you wish, only don't do anything to these men, because they're here under my protection."

But they replied, "Get out of the way! This man came here as a foreigner, and now he's acting like a judge! So we're going to deal more harshly with you than with them." Then they pushed hard against the man (that is, against Lot), intending to break down the door.

But the angels inside reached out, dragged Lot back into the house with them, shut the door,

and blinded the men who were at the entrance of the house, from the least important to the greatest, so they were unable to find the doorway.

Lot then went out and told his sons-in-law (they had married his daughters), "Get out of here! The LORD is going to destroy this city!" But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

As dawn was breaking, the angels pressured Lot. "Get going!" they told him. "Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be engulfed by the devastation that's coming to this city."

But Lot kept lingering in the city, so the men grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters (because of the LORD's compassion for him!), brought them out of the city, and left them outside.

"Your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me your gracious love in how you have dealt with me by keeping me alive. I cannot escape to the hills, because I'm afraid the disaster will overtake me, and I'll die.

Look, there is a town nearby where I can flee, and it's a small one. Let me escape there! It's a small one, isn't it? That way I'll stay alive!"

Hurry up and flee there, because I cannot do anything until you get to that town." Therefore the name of the town was called Zoar.

Then the LORD rained sulfur and fire out of the sky from the LORD on Sodom and Gomorrah,

overthrowing those cities, all of the plain, and everyone who lived in the cities. He also destroyed the plants that grew out of the ground.

But Lot's wife looked back as she lingered behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD earlier.

He looked off toward Sodom, Gomorrah, and the entire plain, and he saw smoke rising from the land like smoke from a furnace.

And so it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and brought Lot out from the midst of the destruction when he overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

Later on, Lot and his two daughters abandoned Zoar and settled in the hills because Lot was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived there in a cave, along with his two daughters.

One day the firstborn told the younger one, "Our father is old, and there's no man in the land to have sex with us, as everybody else throughout all the earth does.

Come on! Let's make our father drink wine, and then we'll have sex with him so we can preserve our father's lineage."

So they had their father drink wine that night, and the older one had sexual relations with her father, but he was not aware when she lay down or when she got up.

The firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Moab, and he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day.

The younger daughter also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-ammi, and he is the ancestor of the Ammonites to this day.

Abraham traveled from there to the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was living in Gerar as an outsider,

because Abraham kept saying about his wife Sarah, "She is my sister," King Abimelech of Gerar summoned them and took Sarah into his household.

But God came to Abimelech in a dream during the night and spoke to him, "Pay attention! You're about to die, because the woman you have taken is a man's wife!"

Didn't he say to me, "She's my sister'? And she also said, "He's my brother.' I did this with pure intentions and clean hands."

Then God replied to him in the dream, "I know that you did this with pure intentions, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore, I didn't allow you to touch her.

Now then, return the man's wife. As a matter of fact, he's a prophet and can intercede for you so you'll live. But if you don't return her, be aware that you and all who are yours will certainly die."

So Abimelech got up early the next morning, summoned all his servants, and told them all these things. The men became terrified.

Then Abimelech called Abraham and asked him, "What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you, that you have brought such great sin against me and my kingdom? You've done things to me that ought not to have been done."

"I thought that there's no fear of God in this place," Abraham replied, "and that they would kill me because of my wife.

When God caused me to journey from my father's house, I asked her to do me this favor and say, "He's my brother.'"

So Abimelech took some sheep and oxen, and some male and female servants, gave them to Abraham, returned his wife Sarah to him,

and said, "Look! My land is available to you, so settle wherever you please."

Then Abraham interceded with God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants so they could bear children,

The LORD came to Sarah, just as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised.

Sarah conceived and gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age, at the very time that God had told him.

Now Sarah had said, "God has caused me to laugh, and all who hear about it will laugh with me."

The child grew and eventually was weaned, so Abraham threw a tremendous banquet on the very day Isaac was weaned.

but God told Abraham, "Don't be troubled about the youth and your slave girl. Pay attention to Sarah in everything she tells you, because your offspring are to be named through Isaac.

Nevertheless, I will make the slave girl's son into a nation, since he, too, is your offspring."

So early the next morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a leather bottle of water, gave them to Hagar, and placed them on her shoulder. He then sent her away, along with the child. She went off and roamed in the Beer-sheba wilderness.

Then she went and sat by herself about a distance of a bowshot away, because she kept saying to herself, "I can't bear to watch the child die!" That's why she sat a short distance away, crying aloud and weeping.

God heard the boy's voice, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven. He asked her, "What's wrong with you, Hagar? Don't be afraid, because God has heard the voice of the youth where he is.

Get up! Pick up the youth and grab his hand, because I will make a great nation of his descendants."

Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went, filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy as he grew up. He settled in the wilderness and became an expert archer.

Later he settled in the desert area of Paran, and his mother chose a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

About that time, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, told Abraham, "God is with you in everything that you're doing.

Therefore swear an oath here by God that you won't deal falsely with me, my sons, or my descendants. Just as I've dealt graciously with you, won't you do so with me and with the land in which you live as a foreigner?"

And Abraham replied, "I agree!"

"I don't know who did this thing," Abimelech replied. "You didn't report this to me, and I didn't hear about it until today."

So Abraham took sheep and oxen and presented them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant.

So after they had made a covenant in Beer-sheba, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, left and returned to Philistine territory.

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

God said, "Please take your son, your unique son whom you love Isaac and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him as a burnt offering there on one of the mountains that I will point out to you."

So Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his male servants with him, along with his son Isaac. He cut the wood for the burnt offering and set out to go to the place about which God had spoken to him.

On the third day he looked ahead and saw the place from a distance.

Abraham ordered his two servants, "Both of you are to stay here with the donkey. Now as for the youth and me, we'll go up there, we'll worship, and then we'll return to you."

Then Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac. Abraham carried the fire and the knife. And so the two of them went on together.

Isaac addressed his father Abraham: "My father!" "I'm here, my son," Abraham replied. Isaac asked, "The fire and the wood are here, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering?"

The two of them went on together and came to the place about which God had spoken. Abraham built an altar there, arranged the wood, tied up his son Isaac, and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.

Then he stretched out his hand and grabbed the knife to slaughter his son.

Just then, an angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven and said, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he answered.

Then Abraham looked up and behind him to see a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. So Abraham went over, grabbed the ram, and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.

and said, "I have taken an oath to swear by myself," declares the LORD, "that since you have carried this out and have not withheld your only unique son,

I will certainly bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in heaven and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the gates of their enemies.

After this, Abraham returned to his servants and they set out together for Beer-sheba, where Abraham settled.

Uz is his firstborn, Buz is his brother, and Kemuel is the father of Aram,

Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel."

Also, his concubine Reumah gave birth to Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.

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

Then Abraham stood up from beside his dead wife and addressed the Hittites. He said,

"I am an alien and an outsider among you. Give me a cemetery among you where I can bury my dead away from my presence."

Abraham rose and bowed before the Hittites, the people of the land,

and addressed them, "If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, listen to me and make a request of Zohar's son Ephron on my behalf.

Give me the cave of Machpelah that belongs to him, at the end of his field. He should sell it to me in your presence at full price for a burial site."

Now since Ephron the Hittite had taken a seat there among the Hittites, he responded publicly to Abraham where the Hittites and everyone who was entering the gate of his city could hear him:

"No, sir. Listen to me! I'll give you the field, and I'll give you the cave that's in it. I give it to you publicly, in the sight of my people. Bury your dead."

and then addressed Ephron so all the people of the land could hear him: "Please listen to me! I'm willing to pay the price of the field. Accept it from me, so I may bury my dead there."

That's how Ephron's field in Machpelah, east of Mamre the field, the cave that was in it, and all the trees that were within the boundaries of the field came to be deeded

to Abraham in the presence of all the Hittites and everyone who was entering the city gate.

And so the field with its cave was deeded by the Hittites to Abraham as a burial site.

Now Abraham had grown old, was well advanced in age, and the LORD had blessed Abraham in every way.

So Abraham instructed his servant, who was the oldest member of his household and in charge of everything he owned, "Make this solemn oath to me

as a promise to the LORD, the God of heaven and earth, that you won't acquire a wife for my son from the Canaanite women among whom I'm living.

Instead, you are to go to my country and to my family and acquire a wife for my son Isaac."

"What if the woman doesn't want to come back with me to this land?" the servant asked. "Shouldn't I have your son go to the land from which you came?"

"The LORD God of heaven, who brought me from my father's house and from my family's land, who spoke to me and promised me "I will give this land to your descendants,' will send his angel ahead of you, and you are to acquire a wife for my son from there.

Then Abraham's servant took ten camels from his master's herd of camels and left on his journey with all kinds of gifts from his master's inventory. Eventually, he traveled as far as Aram-naharaim, Nahor's home town.

As evening approached, he had the camels kneel outside the town at the water well, right about the time when women customarily went out to draw water.

May it be that the young woman to whom I ask, "Please, lower your jug so that I may drink,' responds, "Have a drink, and I'll water your camels as well.' May she be the one whom you have chosen for your servant Isaac. This is how I'll know that you have shown your gracious love to my master."