'Fathers' in the Bible

As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace; at the end of a long life you will be put in your last resting-place.

Then the Lord said to Jacob, Go back to the land of your fathers, and to your relations, and I will be with you.

You are to say, Your servants have been keepers of cattle from our early days up to now, like our fathers; in this way you will be able to have the land of Goshen for yourselves; because keepers of sheep are unclean in the eyes of the Egyptians.

And Pharaoh said to them, What is your business? And they said, Your servants are keepers of sheep, as our fathers were before us.

And Jacob said, The years of my wanderings have been a hundred and thirty; small in number and full of sorrow have been the years of my life, and less than the years of the wanderings of my fathers.

But when I go to my fathers, you are to take me out of Egypt and put me to rest in their last resting-place. And he said, I will do so.

And he gave Joseph a blessing, saying, May the God to whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, gave worship, the God who has taken care of me all my life till this day,

The angel who has been my saviour from all evil, send his blessing on these children: and let my name and the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, be given to them; and let them become a great nation in the earth.

Then Israel said to Joseph, Now my death is near; but God will be with you, guiding you back to the land of your fathers.

And he gave orders to them, saying, Put me to rest with my people and with my fathers, in the hollow of the rock in the field of Ephron the Hittite,

And he said, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses kept his face covered for fear of looking on God.

And Moses said to God, When I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you: and they say to me, What is his name? what am I to say to them?

And God went on to say to Moses, Say to the children of Israel, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is my name for ever, and this is my sign to all generations.

Go and get together the chiefs of the children of Israel, and say to them, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has been seen by me, and has said, Truly I have taken up your cause, because of what is done to you in Egypt;

So that they may be certain that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has been seen by you.

These are the heads of their fathers' families: the sons of Reuben the oldest son of Israel: Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi: these are the families of Reuben.

And your houses will be full of them, and the houses of your servants and of all the Egyptians; it will be worse than anything your fathers have seen or their fathers, from the day when they were living on the earth till this day. And so he went out from Pharaoh.

Say to all the children of Israel when they are come together, In the tenth day of this month every man is to take a lamb, by the number of their fathers' families, a lamb for every family:

And it will be that, when the Lord takes you into the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, the land which he made an oath to your fathers that he would give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you will do this act of worship in this month.

And when the Lord takes you into the land of Canaan, as he made his oath to you and to your fathers, and gives it to you,

You may not go down on your faces before them or give them worship: for I, the Lord your God, am a God who will not give his honour to another; and I will send punishment on the children for the wrongdoing of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation of my haters;

And in the heat of my wrath I will put you to death with the sword, so that your wives will be widows and your children without fathers.

Having mercy on thousands, overlooking evil and wrongdoing and sin; he will not let wrongdoers go free, but will send punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, and on their children's children to the third and fourth generation.

Then he will go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his family and to the property of his fathers.

And those of you who are still living will be wasting away in their sins in the land of your haters; in the sins of their fathers they will be wasting away.

And they will have grief for their sins and for the sins of their fathers, when their hearts were untrue to me, and they went against me;

And because of them I will keep in mind the agreement which I made with their fathers, whom I took out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, to be their God: I am the Lord.

Take the full number of the children of Israel, by their families, and by their fathers' houses, every male by name;

These are the men named out of all the people, chiefs of their fathers' houses, heads of the tribes of Israel.

The generations of the sons of Reuben, the oldest son of Israel, were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over, who was able to go to war;

The generations of the sons of Simeon were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over, who was able to go to war;

The generations of the sons of Gad were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

The generations of the sons of Judah were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

The generations of the sons of Issachar were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

The generations of the sons of Zebulun were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

The generations of the sons of Joseph were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

The generations of the sons of Manasseh were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

The generations of the sons of Benjamin were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

The generations of the sons of Dan were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years and over who was able to go to war;

The generations of the sons of Asher were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

The generations of the sons of Naphtali were numbered by their families and their fathers' houses, every male of twenty years old and over who was able to go to war;

But the Levites, of the tribe of their fathers, were not numbered among them.

The children of Israel are to put up their tents in the order of their families, by the flags of their fathers' houses, facing the Tent of meeting on every side.

These are all who were numbered of the children of Israel, in the order of their fathers' families: all the armies in their tents together came to six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty.

So the children of Israel did as the Lord said to Moses, so they put up their tents by their flags, and they went forward in the same order, by their families, and by their fathers' houses.

Let all the children of Levi be numbered by their families and their fathers' houses; let every male of a month old and over be numbered.

And the sons of Merari by their families: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites in the order of their fathers' houses.

Let the sons of Kohath, from among the sons of Levi, be numbered by their families, in the order of their fathers' houses;

Let the sons of Gershon be numbered by families, in the order of their fathers' houses;

The sons of Merari are to be numbered by families, in the order of their fathers' houses;

So Moses and Aaron and the chiefs of the people took in hand the numbering of the sons of the Kohathites, by families, in the order of their fathers' houses;

Who were numbered by families in the order of their fathers' houses, were two thousand, six hundred and thirty.

And those of the sons of Merari who were numbered by families, in the order of their fathers' houses,

And all the Levites who were numbered by Moses and Aaron and the chiefs of the people, by families, in the order of their fathers' houses,

Then the chiefs of Israel, the heads of their fathers' houses, made offerings; these were the chiefs of the tribes, who were over those who were numbered.

Am I the father of all this people? have I given them birth, that you say to me, Take them in your arms, like a child at the breast, to the land which you gave by an oath to their fathers?

Send men to get knowledge about the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from every tribe of their fathers you are to send a man, every one a chief among them.

The Lord is slow to wrath and great in mercy, overlooking wrongdoing and evil, and will not let wrongdoers go free; sending punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation.

They will not see the land about which I made an oath to their fathers; not one of these by whom I have not been honoured will see it.

How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we were living in Egypt for a long time; and the Egyptians were cruel to us and to our fathers:

Let all the children of Israel be numbered, by the names of their fathers' families, all those of twenty years old and over who are able to go to war in Israel.

But let the distribution of the land be made by the decision of the Lord: by the names of the tribes of their fathers let their heritage be given them.

So did your fathers, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land.

And now you have come to take the place of your fathers, another generation of sinners, increasing the wrath of the Lord against Israel.

And you will take up your heritage in the land by the decision of the Lord, to every family its part; the greater the family the greater its heritage, and the smaller the family the smaller will be its heritage; wherever the decision of the Lord gives to any man his part, that will be his; distribution will be made to you by your fathers' tribes.

For the tribe of the children of Reuben, by their fathers' families, and the tribe of the children of Gad, by their fathers' families, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, have been given their heritage:

Now if they get married to any of the sons of other tribes of the children of Israel, then their property will be taken away from the heritage of our fathers, and become part of the heritage of the tribe into which they get married: and their heritage will be taken away from the heritage of our tribe.

And at the time of the Jubilee of the children of Israel, their property will be joined to the heritage of the tribe of which they are part and will be taken away from the heritage of the tribe of our fathers.

And every daughter owning property in any tribe of the children of Israel is to be married to one of the family of her father's tribe, so that every man of the children of Israel may keep the heritage of his fathers.

See, all the land is before you: go in and take for yourselves the land which the Lord gave by an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their seed after them.

May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times greater in number than you are, and give you his blessing as he has said!

See now, the Lord your God has put the land into your hands: go up and take it, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has said to you; have no fear and do not be troubled.

Truly, not one of this evil generation will see that good land which I said I would give to your fathers,

And now give ear, O Israel, to the laws and the decisions which I am teaching you, and do them; so that life may be yours, and you may go in and take for yourselves the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

Because the Lord your God is a God of mercy, he will not take away his help from you or let destruction overtake you, or be false to the agreement which he made by an oath with your fathers.

And because of his love for your fathers, he took their seed and made it his, and he himself, present among you, took you out of Egypt by his great power;

The Lord did not make this agreement with our fathers but with us, who are all living and present here today.

You may not go down on your faces before them or give them worship: for I, the Lord your God, am a God who will not give his honour to another; and I will send punishment on the children for the wrongdoing of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation of my haters;

So give ear, O Israel, and take care to do this; so that it may be well for you, and you may be greatly increased, as the Lord the God of your fathers has given you his word, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

And when the Lord your God has taken you into the land which he gave his oath to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, that he would give you; with great and fair towns which were not of your building;

And do what is upright and good in the eyes of the Lord your God, so that it may be well for you and you may go in and take for your heritage that good land from which the Lord undertook by an oath to your fathers,

And he took us out from that place, guiding us here to give us this land, as he said in his oath to our fathers.

But because of his love for you, and in order to keep his oath to your fathers, the Lord took you out with the strength of his hand, making you free from the prison-house and from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

And it will be, that if you give attention to these decisions and keep and do them, then the Lord will keep his agreement with you and his mercy, as he said in his oath to your fathers.

And he will give you his love, blessing you and increasing you: he will send his blessing on the offspring of your body and the fruit of your land, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock, in the land which by his oath to your fathers he undertook to give you.

Take care to keep all the orders which I give you today, so that you may have life and be increased and go in and take as a heritage the land which the Lord, by his oath to your fathers, undertook to give you.

And he made low your pride and let you be without food and gave you manna for your food, a thing new to you, which your fathers never saw; so that he might make it clear to you that bread is not man's only need, but his life is in every word which comes out of the mouth of the Lord.

Who gave you manna for your food in the waste land, a food which your fathers had never seen; so that your pride might be broken and your hearts tested for your good in the end;

But keep in mind the Lord your God: for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth, so that he may give effect to the agreement which he made by his oath with your fathers, as at this day.

Not for your righteousness or because your hearts are upright are you going in to take their land; but because of the evil-doing of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and to give effect to his oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Then the Lord said to me, Get up and go on your journey before the people, so that they may go in and take the land which I said in my oath to their fathers that I would give them.

But the Lord had delight in your fathers and love for them, marking out for himself their seed after them, even you, from all peoples, as at this day.

Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons; and now the Lord your God has made you like the stars of heaven in number.

And that your days may be long in the land which the Lord gave by an oath to your fathers and to their seed after them, a land flowing with milk and honey.

So that your days, and the days of your children, may be long in the land which the Lord by his oath to your fathers said he would give them, like the days of the eternal heavens.

These are the laws and the decisions which you are to keep with care in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to be your heritage all the days of your life on earth.

If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife of your heart, or the friend who is as dear to you as your life, working on you secretly says to you, Let us go and give worship to other gods, strange to you and to your fathers;

Keep not a thing of what is cursed for yourselves: so the Lord may be turned away from the heat of his wrath, and have mercy on you, and give you increase as he said in his oath to your fathers:

And if the Lord your God makes wide the limits of your land, as he said in his oath to your fathers, and gives you all the land which he undertook to give to your fathers;

Fathers are not to be put to death for their children or children for their fathers: every man is to be put to death for the sin which he himself has done.