Abraham: The Covenant

Now Adonai said to Avram, “Get yourself out of your country, away from your kinsmen and away from your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you.

I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great; and you are to be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you; and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

So Avram went, as Adonai had said to him, and Lot went with him. Avram was 75 years old when he left Haran.

Avram took his wife Sarai, his brother’s son Lot, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, as well as the people they had acquired in Haran; then they set out for the land of Kena‘an and entered the land of Kena‘an.

Avram passed through the land to the place called Sh’khem, to the oak of Moreh. The Kena‘ani were then in the land.

Adonai appeared to Avram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to Adonai, who had appeared to him.

He left that place, went to the hill east of Beit-El and pitched his tent. With Beit-El to the west and ‘Ai to the east, he built an altar there and called on the name of Adonai.

Then Avram traveled on, continuing toward the Negev.

But there was a famine in the land, so Avram went down into Egypt to stay there, because the famine in the land was severe.

When he came close to Egypt and was about to enter, he said to Sarai his wife, “Here now, I know that you are a good-looking woman;

so that when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife,’ and kill me but keep you alive.

Please say that you are my sister, so that it will go well with me for your sake, and so that I will stay alive because of you.”

When Avram entered Egypt, the Egyptians did notice that the woman was very beautiful.

Pharaoh’s princes saw her and commended her to Pharaoh, so the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.

He treated Avram well for her sake, giving him sheep, cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female slaves, and camels.

But Adonai inflicted great plagues on Pharaoh and his household because of Sarai Avram’s wife.

Pharaoh called Avram and said, “What is this that you have done to me? Why didn’t you tell me that she was your wife?

Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my own wife? Now therefore, here is your wife! Take her, and go away!”

So Pharaoh gave orders concerning him to his men, and they sent him on his way with his wife and everything he had.

Avram went up from Egypt - he, his wife and everything he had, and Lot with him - into the Negev.

Avram became wealthy, with much cattle, silver and gold.

As he went on his travels from the Negev, he came to Beit-El, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beit-El and 'Ai,

where he had first built the altar; and there Avram called on the name of ADONAI.

Lot, who was traveling with Avram, also had flocks, herds and tents.