Dual Panel1The LORD came to Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what He had promised.
2Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time God had told him.
3Abraham named his son who was born to him--the one Sarah bore to him--Isaac.
4When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him.
5Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6Sarah said, "God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears will laugh with me."
7She also said, "Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."
8The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.
9But Sarah saw the son mocking--the one Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham.
10So she said to Abraham, "Drive out this slave with her son, for the son of this slave will not be a co-heir with my son Isaac!"
11Now this was a very difficult thing for Abraham because of his son.
12But God said to Abraham, "Do not be concerned about the boy and your slave. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her, because your offspring will be traced through Isaac.
13But I will also make a nation of the slave's son because he is your offspring."
14Early in the morning Abraham got up, took bread and a waterskin, put them on Hagar's shoulders, and sent her and the boy away. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beer-sheba.
15When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes.
16Then she went and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, "I can't bear to watch the boy die!" So as she sat nearby, she wept loudly.
17God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What's wrong, Hagar? Don't be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy from the place where he is.
18Get up, help the boy up, and sustain him, for I will make him a great nation."
19Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the waterskin and gave the boy a drink.
20God was with the boy, and he grew; he settled in the wilderness and became an archer.
21He settled in the Wilderness of Paran, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
22At that time Abimelech, with Phicol the commander of his army, said to Abraham, "God is with you in everything you do.
23Now swear to me here by God that you will not break an agreement with me or with my children and descendants. As I have kept faith with you, so you will keep faith with me and with the country where you are a resident alien."
24And Abraham said, "I swear it ."
25But Abraham complained to Abimelech because of the water well that Abimelech's servants had seized.
26Abimelech replied, "I don't know who did this thing. You didn't report anything to me, so I hadn't heard about it until today."
27Then Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant.
28But Abraham had set apart seven ewe lambs from the flock.
29And Abimelech said to Abraham, "Why have you set apart these seven ewe lambs?"
30He replied, "You are to accept the seven ewe lambs from my hand so that this act will serve as my witness that I dug this well."
31Therefore that place was called Beer-sheba because it was there that the two of them swore an oath.
32After they had made a covenant at Beer-sheba, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, left and returned to the land of the Philistines.
33Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and there he worshiped the LORD, the Everlasting God.
34And Abraham lived as a foreigner in the land of the Philistines for many days.