Old/New Testament
Chapter 20
Abraham at Gerar.[a] 1 From there Abraham journeyed on to the region of the Negeb, where he settled between Kadesh and Shur.[b] While he resided in Gerar as an alien, 2 Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” So Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream one night and said to him: You are about to die because of the woman you have taken, for she has a husband. 4 Abimelech, who had not approached her, said: “O Lord, would you kill an innocent man? 5 Was he not the one who told me, ‘She is my sister’? She herself also stated, ‘He is my brother.’ I acted with pure heart and with clean hands.” 6 [c]God answered him in the dream: Yes, I know you did it with a pure heart. In fact, it was I who kept you from sinning against me; that is why I did not let you touch her. 7 So now, return the man’s wife so that he may intercede for you, since he is a prophet,[d] that you may live. If you do not return her, you can be sure that you and all who are yours will die.
8 Early the next morning Abimelech called all his servants and informed them of everything that had happened, and the men were filled with fear. 9 Then Abimelech summoned Abraham and said to him: “What have you done to us! What wrong did I do to you that you would have brought such great guilt on me and my kingdom? You have treated me in an intolerable way. 10 What did you have in mind,” Abimelech asked him, “that you would do such a thing?” 11 Abraham answered, “I thought there would be no fear of God[e] in this place, and so they would kill me on account of my wife. 12 Besides, she really is my sister,[f] but only my father’s daughter, not my mother’s; and so she became my wife. 13 When God sent me wandering from my father’s house, I asked her: ‘Would you do me this favor? In whatever place we come to, say: He is my brother.’”(A)
14 Then Abimelech took flocks and herds and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham; and he restored his wife Sarah to him. 15 Then Abimelech said, “Here, my land is at your disposal; settle wherever you please.” 16 To Sarah he said: “I hereby give your brother a thousand shekels of silver. This will preserve your honor before all who are with you and will exonerate you before everyone.” 17 Abraham then interceded with God, and God restored health to Abimelech, to his wife, and his maidservants, so that they bore children; 18 for the Lord had closed every womb in Abimelech’s household on account of Abraham’s wife Sarah.
Chapter 21
Birth of Isaac.[g] 1 The Lord took note of Sarah as he had said he would; the Lord did for her as he had promised.(B) 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time that God had stated.(C) 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac to this son of his whom Sarah bore him.(D) 4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded.(E) 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 Sarah then said, “God has given me cause to laugh,[h] and all who hear of it will laugh with me.(F) 7 Who would ever have told Abraham,” she added, “that Sarah would nurse children! Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” 8 The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great banquet on the day of the child’s weaning.
9 Sarah noticed the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing with her son Isaac; 10 so she demanded of Abraham: “Drive out that slave and her son! No son of that slave is going to share the inheritance with my son Isaac!”(G) 11 Abraham was greatly distressed because it concerned a son of his.[i] 12 But God said to Abraham: Do not be distressed about the boy or about your slave woman. Obey Sarah, no matter what she asks of you; for it is through Isaac that descendants will bear your name.(H) 13 As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also,[j] since he too is your offspring.
14 Early the next morning Abraham got some bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. Then, placing the child on her back,[k] he sent her away. As she roamed aimlessly in the wilderness of Beer-sheba, 15 the water in the skin was used up. So she put the child down under one of the bushes, 16 and then went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away; for she said to herself, “I cannot watch the child die.” As she sat opposite him, she wept aloud. 17 God heard the boy’s voice, and God’s angel called to Hagar from heaven: “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not fear; God has heard the boy’s voice in this plight of his.(I) 18 Get up, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand; for I will make of him a great nation.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water, and then let the boy drink.
20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert bowman. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
The Covenant at Beer-sheba. 22 [l]At that time Abimelech, accompanied by Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham: “God is with you in everything you do. 23 So now, swear to me by God at this place[m] that you will not deal falsely with me or with my progeny and posterity, but will act as loyally toward me and the land in which you reside as I have acted toward you.” 24 Abraham replied, “I so swear.”
25 Abraham, however, reproached Abimelech about a well that Abimelech’s servants had seized by force. 26 “I have no idea who did that,” Abimelech replied. “In fact, you never told me about it, nor did I ever hear of it until now.”
27 Then Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech and the two made a covenant. 28 Abraham also set apart seven ewe lambs of the flock, 29 and Abimelech asked him, “What is the purpose of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?” 30 Abraham answered, “The seven ewe lambs you shall accept from me that you may be my witness that I dug this well.” 31 This is why the place is called Beer-sheba; the two of them took an oath there. 32 When they had thus made the covenant in Beer-sheba, Abimelech, along with Phicol, the commander of his army, left to return to the land of the Philistines.[n]
33 Abraham planted a tamarisk at Beer-sheba, and there he invoked by name the Lord, God the Eternal.[o] 34 Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines for a long time.
Chapter 22
The Testing of Abraham.[p] 1 Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test and said to him: Abraham! “Here I am!” he replied.(J) 2 Then God said: Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.(K) 3 Early the next morning Abraham saddled his donkey, took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac, and after cutting the wood for the burnt offering, set out for the place of which God had told him.
4 On the third day Abraham caught sight of the place from a distance. 5 Abraham said to his servants: “Stay here with the donkey, while the boy and I go on over there. We will worship and then come back to you.” 6 So Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two walked on together, 7 Isaac spoke to his father Abraham. “Father!” he said. “Here I am,” he replied. Isaac continued, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” 8 “My son,” Abraham answered, “God will provide the sheep for the burnt offering.” Then the two walked on together.
9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. Next he bound[q] his son Isaac, and put him on top of the wood on the altar.(L) 10 Then Abraham reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.(M) 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!” “Here I am,” he answered. 12 “Do not lay your hand on the boy,” said the angel. “Do not do the least thing to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you did not withhold from me your son, your only one.”(N) 13 Abraham looked up and saw a single ram caught by its horns in the thicket. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son.[r] 14 Abraham named that place Yahweh-yireh;[s] hence people today say, “On the mountain the Lord will provide.”
15 [t]A second time the angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven 16 (O)and said: “I swear by my very self—oracle of the Lord—that because you acted as you did in not withholding from me your son, your only one, 17 I will bless you and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore; your descendants will take possession of the gates of their enemies,(P) 18 and in your descendants all the nations of the earth will find blessing, because you obeyed my command.”(Q)
19 Abraham then returned to his servants, and they set out together for Beer-sheba, where Abraham lived.
Nahor’s Descendants.[u] 20 Some time afterward, the news came to Abraham: “Milcah too has borne sons to your brother Nahor: 21 Uz, his firstborn, his brother Buz, Kemuel the father of Aram, 22 Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.” 23 Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham’s brother. 24 His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore children: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.
Treasure in Heaven. 19 [a]“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.(A) 20 But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.(B)
The Light of the Body.[b] 22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.(C)
God and Money. 24 [c]“No one can serve two masters.(D) He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Dependence on God.[d] 25 (E)“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?(F) 27 Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?[e] 28 Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. 29 But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. 30 [f]If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ 32 All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness,[g] and all these things will be given you besides. 34 Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.