The Call of Abram

12 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.^{(A) 2} I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.^{(B) 3} I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”^[a](C)

⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.^{(D) 5} Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan,^{(E) 6} Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak^[b] of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.^{(F) 7} Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.^{(G) 8} From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord.^{(H) 9} And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.

The Faith of Abraham

⁸ By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he set out, not knowing where he was going.^{(A) 9} By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.^{(B) 10} For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.^{(C) 11} By faith, with Sarah’s involvement, he received power of procreation, even though he was too old, because he considered^[a] him faithful who had promised.^{(D) 12} Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”^(E)