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The Holy Bible

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The Book of Genesis

Chapter 21

  

The Birth of Isaac

1
THE

Lord came to Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what He had promised.  2  Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time of which God had spoken to him.  3  Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him.  4  When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him.  5  Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

6 Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears will laugh with me.”  7  She also said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

Hagar and Ishmael Sent Away

8 The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.  9  But Sarah saw the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking.  10  So she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for the son of that slave woman will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”

11  The matter was very distressing to Abraham because it concerned his son.  12  But God said to Abraham, “Do not be so distressed because of the boy or because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her, for it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.  13  But I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.”

14  So Abraham got up early the next morning, and he took some bread and a skin of water, and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and he sent her and the boy away. She went on her way and wandered about in the Wilderness of Beer-sheba.

15  When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes.  16  Then she went and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said to herself, “I can’t bear to watch the boy die.” And as she sat there nearby, she began to weep loudly.

17  God heard the boy crying, and the Angel of God called out to Hagar from heaven, and He said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the boy crying as he lays there.  18  Come, go and lift up the boy and hold his hand, and I will make him into a great nation.”

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

20  God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an archer.  21  While he was living in the Wilderness of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

The Treaty at Beer-sheba

22  At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army, said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything you do.  23  So swear to me by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my children or my descendants. As I have dealt loyally with you, deal loyally with me and this country where you are living as a foreign resident.”

24  Abraham said, “I swear it.”

25  Then Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized.  26  But Abimelech said, “I don’t know who did this. You did not tell me about it, so I haven’t heard about it until today.”

27  So Abraham bought sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant.  28  Abraham set apart seven ewe lambs from the flock.  29  And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs you have set apart by themselves?”

30  He replied, “Accept these seven ewe lambs from my hand as a witness for me that I dug this well.”

31  Therefore that place was called Beer-sheba, because the two men swore an oath there.  32  After they had made the covenant at Beer-sheba, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, left and returned to the land of the Philistines.

33  Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.  34  And Abraham lived as a foreigner in the land of the Philistines for many days.