Genesis
12
- The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave
your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I
will show you.
- "I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
- I will bless those who bless you, and whoever
curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through
you."
- So Abram left, as the LORD had told him;
and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from
Haran.
- He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot,
all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired
in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
- Abram traveled through the land as far as
the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites
were in the land.
- The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To
your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to
the LORD, who had appeared to him.
- From there he went on toward the hills east
of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east.
There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.
- Then Abram set out and continued toward
the Negev.
- Now there was a famine in the land, and
Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was
severe.
- As he was about to enter Egypt, he said
to his wife Sarai, "I know what a beautiful woman you are.
- When the Egyptians see you, they will say,
'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me but will let you live.
- Say you are my sister, so that I will be
treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you."
- When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians
saw that she was a very beautiful woman.
- And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they
praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace.
- He treated Abram well for her sake, and
Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and
maidservants, and camels.
- But the LORD inflicted serious diseases
on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram's wife Sarai.
- So Pharaoh summoned Abram. "What have
you done to me?" he said. "Why didn't you tell me she was your wife
?
- Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so
that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go
!"
- Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to
his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.
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