Genesis 16–17

Hagar and Ishmael

16Abram’s wife Sarai had not borne him any children. But she had an Egyptian slave woman named Hagar, ²and so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Why don’t you sleep with my slave? Perhaps she can have a child for me.” Abram agreed with what Sarai said. ³So she gave Hagar to him to be his concubine. (This happened after Abram had lived in Canaan for ten years.) ⁴Abram had intercourse with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When she found out that she was pregnant, she became proud and despised Sarai.

⁵Then Sarai said to Abram, “It’s your fault that Hagar despises me.^k I myself gave her to you, and ever since she found out that she was pregnant, she has despised me. May the Lord judge which of us is right, you or me!”

⁶Abram answered, “Very well, she is your slave and under your control; do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so cruelly that she ran away.

⁷The angel of the Lord met Hagar at a spring in the desert on the road to Shur ⁸and said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?”

She answered, “I am running away from my mistress.”

⁹He said, “Go back to her and be her slave.” ¹⁰Then he said, “I will give you so many descendants that no one will be able to count them. ¹¹You are going to have a son, and you will name him Ishmael,^l because the Lord has heard your cry of distress. ¹²But your son will live like a wild donkey; he will be against everyone, and everyone will be against him. He will live apart from all his relatives.”

¹³Hagar asked herself, “Have I really seen God and lived to tell about it?”^m So she called the Lord who had spoken to her “A God who Sees” ¹⁴That is why people call the well between Kadesh and Bered “The Well of the Living One who Sees Me”.

^15*Hagar bore Abram a son, and he named him Ishmael. ¹⁶Abram was 86 years old at the time.

Circumcision, the Sign of the Covenant

17When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the Almighty God. Obey me and always do what is right. ²I will make my covenant with you and give you many descendants.” ³Abram bowed down with his face touching the ground, and God said, ⁴“I make this covenant with you: I promise that you will be the ancestor of many nations. ^5*Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham,ⁿ because I am making you the ancestor of many nations. ⁶I will give you many descendants, and some of them will be kings. You will have so many descendants that they will become nations.

^7*“I will keep my promise to you and to your descendants in future generations as an everlasting covenant. I will be your God and the God of your descendants. ^8*I will give to you and to your descendants this land in which you are now a foreigner. The whole land of Canaan will belong to your descendants for ever, and I will be their God.”

⁹God said to Abraham, “You also must agree to keep the covenant with me, both you and your descendants in future generations. ^10*You and your descendants must all agree to circumcise every male among you. ^11–12From now on you must circumcise every baby boy when he is eight days old, including slaves born in your homes and slaves bought from foreigners. This will show that there is a covenant between you and me. ¹³Each one must be circumcised, and this will be a physical sign to show that my covenant with you is everlasting. ¹⁴Any male who has not been circumcised will no longer be considered one of my people, because he has not kept the covenant with me.”

¹⁵God said to Abraham, “You must no longer call your wife Sarai; from now on her name is Sarah.^{o 16}I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she will become the mother of nations, and there will be kings among her descendants.”

¹⁷Abraham bowed down with his face touching the ground, but he began to laugh when he thought, “Can a man have a child when he is a hundred years old? Can Sarah have a child at ninety?” ¹⁸He asked God, “Why not let Ishmael be my heir?”

¹⁹But God said, “No. Your wife Sarah will bear you a son and you will name him Isaac.^p I will keep my covenant with him and with his descendants for ever. It is an everlasting covenant. ²⁰I have heard your request about Ishmael, so I will bless him and give him many children and many descendants. He will be the father of twelve princes, and I will make a great nation of his descendants. ²¹But I will keep my covenant with your son Isaac, who will be born to Sarah about this time next year.” ²²When God finished speaking to Abraham, he left him.

²³On that same day Abraham obeyed God and circumcised his son Ishmael and all the other males in his household, including the slaves born in his home and those he had bought. ²⁴Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised, ²⁵and his son Ishmael was thirteen. ²⁶They were both circumcised on the same day, ²⁷together with all Abraham’s slaves.