Genesis 12

The Call of Abram

12The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household^d to the land^e I will show you.^f

²“I will make you into a great nation,^g

and I will bless you;^h

I will make your name great,

and you will be a blessing.^ai

³I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will curse;^j

and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you.^k”^b

⁴So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot^l went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old^m when he set out from Harran.^{n 5}He took his wife Sarai,^o his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated^p and the people^q they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan,^r and they arrived there.

⁶Abram traveled through the land^s as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh^t at Shechem.^u At that time the Canaanites^v were in the land. ⁷The Lord appeared to Abram^w and said, “To your offspring^c I will give this land.^x”^y So he built an altar there to the Lord,^z who had appeared to him.

⁸From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel^a and pitched his tent,^b with Bethel on the west and Ai^c on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.^d

⁹Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.^e

Abram in Egypt

12:10–20Ref—Ge 20:1–18; 26:1–11

¹⁰Now there was a famine in the land,^f and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.^{g 11}As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai,^h “I know what a beautiful womanⁱ you are. ¹²When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. ¹³Say you are my sister,^j so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

¹⁴When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman.^{k 15}And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. ¹⁶He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.^l

¹⁷But the Lord inflicted^m serious diseases on Pharaoh and his householdⁿ because of Abram’s wife Sarai. ¹⁸So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?”^o he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?^{p 19}Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’^q so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” ²⁰Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.