Genesis 12–13

The Call of Abram

¹²Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.^{* 2}I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.^{* 3}I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”^i*

⁴So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.^{* 5}Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan,^{* 6}Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak^j of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.^{* 7}Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.^{* 8}From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord.^{* 9}And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.

Abram and Sarai in Egypt

¹⁰Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to reside there as an alien, for the famine was severe in the land. ¹¹When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know well that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, ¹²and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; then they will kill me, but they will let you live.^{* 13}Say you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you and that my life may be spared on your account.”^{* 14}When Abram entered Egypt the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. ¹⁵When the officials of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.^{* 16}And for her sake he dealt well with Abram, and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female slaves, female donkeys, and camels.^*

¹⁷But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.^{* 18}So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?^{* 19}Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone.” ²⁰And Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning him, and they set him on the way with his wife and all that he had.^*

Abram and Lot Separate

¹³So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had and Lot with him, into the Negeb.^*

²Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. ³He journeyed on by stages from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,^{* 4}to the place where he had made an altar at the first, and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.^{* 5}Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, ⁶and the land could not support both of them living together because their possessions were so great that they could not live together. ⁷Thus strife arose between the herders of Abram’s livestock and the herders of Lot’s livestock. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land.^*

⁸Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me and between your herders and my herders, for we are kindred.^{* 9}Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.” ¹⁰Lot looked about him and saw that the plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar; this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.^{* 11}So Lot chose for himself all the plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward, and they separated from each other. ¹²Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom.^{* 13}Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.^*

¹⁴The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward,^{* 15}for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.^{* 16}I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.^{* 17}Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”^{* 18}So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks^k of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the Lord.^*