Abraham: The Covenant

But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will depart with many possessions.

You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.

In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, behold, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the halves of the carcasses.

On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—

the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,

Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,

Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

Now Abram’s wife Sarai had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar.

So Sarai said to Abram, “Look now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

So after he had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to Abram to be his wife.

And he slept with Hagar, and she conceived. But when Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.

Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be upon you! I delivered my servant into your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me.”

“Here,” said Abram, “your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she fled from her.

Now the angel of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur.

“Hagar, servant of Sarai,” he said, “where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I am running away from my mistress Sarai,” she replied.

So the angel of the LORD told her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.”

Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”

The angel of the LORD proceeded: “Behold, you have conceived and will bear a son. And you shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard your cry of affliction.

He will be a wild donkey of a man, and his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

So Hagar gave this name to the LORD who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!”

Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi. It is located between Kadesh and Bered.

And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.

Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless.