Dual PanelThe early years of Isaac
1THE LORD showed favour to Sarah as he had promised, and made good what he had said about her.
2She conceived and at the time foretold by God she bore a son to Abraham in his old age.
3The son whom Sarah bore to him Abraham named Isaac,
4and when Isaac was eight days old Abraham circumcised him, as decreed by God.
5Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born.
6Sarah said, “God has given me good reason to laugh, and everyone who hears will laugh with me.”
7She added, “Whoever would have told Abraham that Sarah would suckle children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
8The boy grew and was weaned, and on the day of his weaning Abraham gave a great feast.
9Sarah saw the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing with Isaac,
10and she said to Abraham, “Drive out this slave-girl and her son! I will not have this slave's son sharing the inheritance with my son Isaac.”
11Abraham was very upset at this because of Ishmael,
12but God said to him, “Do not be upset for the boy and your slave-girl. Do as Sarah says, because it is through Isaac's line that your name will be perpetuated.
13I shall make a nation of the slave-girl's son, because he also is your child.”
14Early next morning Abraham took some food and a full water-skin and gave them to Hagar. He set the child on her shoulder and sent her away, and she wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba.
15When the water in the skin was finished, she thrust the child under a bush,
16then went and sat down some way off, about a bowshot distant. “How can I watch the child die?” she said, and sat there, weeping bitterly.
17God heard the child crying, and the angel of God called from heaven to Hagar, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid: God has heard the child crying where you laid him.
18Go, lift the child and hold him in your arms, because I shall make of him a great nation.”
19Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well full of water; she went to it, filled the water-skin, and gave the child a drink.
20God was with the child as he grew up. He lived in the wilderness of Paran and became an archer;
21and his mother got him a wife from Egypt.
22About that time Abimelech, with Phicol the commander of his army, said to Abraham: “God is with you in all that you do.
23Here and now swear to me in the name of God, that you will not break faith with me or with my children and my descendants. As I have kept faith with you, so must you keep faith with me and with the country where you are living.”
24Abraham said, “I swear it.”
25It happened that Abraham had a complaint to make to Abimelech about a well which Abimelech's men had seized.
26Abimelech said, “I do not know who did this. Up to this moment you never mentioned it, nor did I hear of it from anyone else.”
27Then Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a pact.
28Abraham set seven ewe lambs apart,
29and when Abimelech asked him why he had done so,
30he said, “Accept these seven lambs from me as a testimony on my behalf that I dug this well.”
31This is why that place was called Beersheba, because there the two of them swore an oath.
32When they had made the pact at Beersheba, Abimelech departed with Phicol the commander of his army and returned to the country of the Philistines.
33Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he invoked the LORD, the Everlasting God, by name.
34He lived as an alien in the country of the Philistines for many years.