26And there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine which was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, to Gerar. ²And Yahweh appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land which I will show to you. ³Dwell as an alien in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you, for I will give all these lands to you and to your descendants, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. ⁴And I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and I will give to your descendants all these lands. And all nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring, ⁵because Abraham listened to my voice and kept my charge: my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

⁶So Isaac settled in Gerar. ⁷When the men of the place asked concerning his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say, “my wife,” thinking^a “the men of the place will kill me on account of Rebekah, for she was beautiful.”^b ⁸And it happened that, when he had been there a long time,^c Abimelech the king of the Philistines looked through the window, and saw—behold—Isaac was fondling Rebekah his wife. ⁹And Abimelech called Isaac^d and said, “Surely she is your wife. Now why did you say ‘She is my sister’?” And Isaac said to him, “Because I thought I would die on account of her.” ¹⁰And Abimelech said, “What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have slept with your wife! Then you would have brought guilt upon us!” ¹¹Then Abimelech instructed all the people, saying, “The one who touches this man or his wife shall certainly die.”

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Footnotes

aOr “lest”
bLiterally “good of appearance”
cLiterally “when the days there were long to him”
dOr “to Isaac”