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there was a famine in the land, besides the earlier famine that had occurred in Abraham’s time. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, in Gerar.
2 The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land that I of which I will tell you. 3 Stay in this land and live as a foreigner, and I will be with you and bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. 4 I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of the heavens and I will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed, 5 because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My requirements, My commands, My statutes, and My laws.” 6 So Isaac settled in Gerar.
7 When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say, “She is my wife.” thinking, “The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is a beautiful woman.”
8 When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. 9 So Abimelech sent for Isaac and said to him, “So she is really your wife! Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?”
Isaac answered him, “Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.”
10 Then Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people could easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.”
11 So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Anyone who molests this man or his wife will certainly be put to death.”
12 Isaac planted crops in that land, and in the same year he reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him. 13 The man became rich, and he continued to prosper until he became very wealthy. 14 He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. 15 So all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up and filled in with earth.
16 Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Move away from us, for you have become too powerful for us.”
17 So Isaac moved away from there and camped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. 18 Isaac reopened the wells of water that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, that the Philistines had stopped up after the death of Abraham, and he gave them the same names that his father had given them.
19 Isaac’s servants also dug in the valley and found a well of fresh water there. 20 But the herdsmen of Gerar quarrelled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they quarrelled with him. 21 Then they dug another well, and they quarrelled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah. 22 He moved away from there and dug another well, and no one quarrelled over it. Isaac named it Rehoboth, saying, “Now the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”
23 From there he went up to Beer-sheba, 24 and the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.”
25 So Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. He pitched his tent there and his servants dug a well.
26 Later Abimelech came to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army. 27 Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since you hated me before and sent me away from you?”
28 They answered, “We have clearly seen that the Lord is with you. So we think that there should be a sworn agreement between us—between you and us. So let us make a treaty with you, 29 that you will do us no harm, just as we have not harmed you but always treated you well and have sent you away in peace(31). You are now blessed by the Lord.”
30 Then Isaac made a feast for them, and they ate and drank. 31 They got up early the next morning and exchanged oaths with each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace.
32 That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. They said to him, “We have found water!” 33 He called it Shebah; so to this day the name of the city has been Beer-sheba.
34 When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite. 35 They were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah.