Genesis 12:1–9

Abram and Sarai

¹12God told Abram: “Leave your country, your family, and your father’s home for a land that I will show you.

^2–3I’ll make you a great nation

and bless you.

I’ll make you famous;

you’ll be a blessing.

I’ll bless those who bless you;

those who curse you I’ll curse.

All the families of the Earth

will be blessed through you.”

^4–6So Abram left just as God said, and Lot left with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot with him, along with all the possessions and people they had gotten in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan and arrived safe and sound.

Abram passed through the country as far as Shechem and the Oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites occupied the land.

⁷God appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your children.” Abram built an altar at the place God had appeared to him.

⁸He moved on from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent between Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. He built an altar there and prayed to God.

⁹Abram kept moving, steadily making his way south, to the Negev.