Peace of Our Savior Lutheran Church and Preschool - WELS

Genesis 16 – 17

Hagar and Ishmael

Genesis 16

¹ Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore no children for him. She had a servant girl, ^[1] an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. ² Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my servant girl. It may be that I can build up a family through her.” Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

³ After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took her servant girl, Hagar the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. ⁴ He went to Hagar, and she conceived. When she saw that she had conceived, she looked down on her mistress. ⁵ Sarai said to Abram, “This wrong that I am suffering is on account of you. I gave my servant girl into your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked down on me. May the Lord judge between me and you.”

⁶ But Abram said to Sarai, “Look, your servant girl is in your hands. Do to her whatever seems good to you.” Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her presence.

⁷ The Angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a flowing spring in the wilderness, beside the spring on the way to Shur. ⁸ He said, “Hagar, servant girl of Sarai, where did you come from? Where are you going?”

She said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.”

⁹ The Angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.” ¹⁰ The Angel of the Lord said to her, “I will greatly multiply your descendants, so that they will be too many to count.” ¹¹ The Angel of the Lord said to her, “Listen, you are expecting a child and will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, ^[2] because the Lord has heard your affliction. ¹² He will be a wild donkey of a man. His hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. He will dwell in hostility toward ^[3] all of his brothers.”

¹³ She called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees,” for she said, “Here have I really seen him who sees me?” ^{[4] 14} Therefore the well was called Be’er Lahai Roi. ^[5] It is right there between Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵ Hagar gave birth to a son for Abram. Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael for him.

The Covenant of Circumcision

Genesis 17

¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. ² I will make my covenant between me and you, and I will make your descendants very numerous.”

³ Abram fell on his face. God spoke with him. He said, ⁴ “As for me, this is my covenant with you. You will be the father of many nations. ⁵ Your name will not be Abram anymore, but your name will be Abraham, ^[6] for I have made you the father of a large group of nations. ⁶ I will make you extremely fruitful, and I will produce nations from you. Kings will come out of you. ⁷ I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you as an everlasting covenant throughout their generations. I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ⁸ I will give the land where you are living as an alien, all the land of Canaan, to you and to your descendants after you as a permanent possession. I will be their God.”

⁹ God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. ¹⁰ This is my covenant, which you shall keep, a covenant between me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. ¹¹ You shall be circumcised by cutting the foreskin off your flesh. It will be a sign of the covenant between me and you. ¹² Every boy among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised, every male throughout your generations, whether he is born in your house or purchased with money ^[7] from any foreigner who is not descended from you. ¹³ Every male who is born in your house or one who is purchased with your money must be circumcised. My covenant will be marked on your flesh as an everlasting covenant. ¹⁴ The uncircumcised male who is not circumcised by removing the foreskin from his flesh, that person must be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant.”

¹⁵ God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai anymore, but her name will be Sarah. ^{[8] 16} I will bless her and even give you a son by her. Yes, I will bless her, and she will be a mother of nations. Kings of many peoples will come from her.”

¹⁷ Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to someone who is one hundred years old? Will Sarah, who is ninety years old, give birth?” ¹⁸ And Abraham said to God, “Oh, let Ishmael live in your presence!”

¹⁹ But God said, “No, Sarah, your wife, will bear a son for you. You shall name him Isaac. ^[9] I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

²⁰ “As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Yes, I have blessed him. I will make him fruitful and will multiply him very greatly. He will become the father of twelve chiefs, and I will make him into a great nation. ²¹ But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear for you at this set time next year.”

²² When he finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. ²³ Abraham took his son Ishmael, along with every male in Abraham’s house, all those who were born in his house, and all those who were purchased with his money, and he circumcised them by cutting off the foreskin from their flesh. He did this on that very day, just as God had said to him. ²⁴ Abraham was ninety-nine years old when the foreskin of his flesh was circumcised. ²⁵ Ishmael, his son, was thirteen years old when the foreskin of his flesh was circumcised. ²⁶ On the same day both Abraham and Ishmael, his son, were circumcised. ²⁷ All the men of his house, those born in the house as well as those purchased with money from a foreigner, were circumcised along with him.

Genesis 15

The Promise of an Heir

¹ After these events the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. He said, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”

² Abram said, “Lord God ^[1] what can you give me, since I remain childless, and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³ Abram also said, “Look, you have given me no offspring, so a servant born in my house will be my heir.”

⁴ Just then, the word of the Lord came to him. God said, “This man will not be your heir, but instead one who will come out of your own body will be your heir.” ⁵ The Lord then brought him outside and said, “Now look toward the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “This is what your descendants will be like.” ⁶ Abram believed in ^[2] the Lord, and the Lord credited it to him as righteousness. ⁷ He said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession.”

⁸ He said, “Lord God, how will I know that I will possess it?”

⁹ The Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ Abram gathered all of these, divided them in half, and laid the two halves across from each other, but he did not divide the birds in two. ¹¹ Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

¹² When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Then terrifying, deep darkness fell on him. ¹³ The Lord said to Abram, “Know this! Your descendants will live as aliens in a land that is not theirs, and they will serve its people, who will afflict them for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will surely judge the nation that they will serve. Afterward your descendants will come out with great wealth, ¹⁵ but you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come here again, because the guilt of the Amorites is not yet full.” ¹⁷ Then when the sun had gone down and it was dark, suddenly a smoking oven and a flaming torch passed between the pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made ^[3] a covenant with Abram. He said, “To your descendants I have given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates. ¹⁹ I will give you the territory of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaites, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

Genesis 13:5 – 14:24

Genesis 13

⁵ Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks, herds, and tents. ⁶ The land was not able to support them if they lived close together, because their possessions were so great that they could not live together. ⁷ There was conflict between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. (The Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land at that time.) ⁸ Abram said to Lot, “Please, because we are close relatives, let there be no conflict between me and you and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen. ⁹ Doesn’t the whole land lie before you? Please separate yourself from me. If you go to the left, then I will go to the right. Or if you go to the right, then I will go to the left.”

¹⁰ Lot looked up and saw the whole region around the Jordan River as you come to Zoar. ^[1] (Before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, it was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.) ¹¹ So Lot chose the region around the Jordan for himself. Lot headed out toward the east, and they separated from each other. ¹² Abram lived in the land of Canaan, and Lot lived among the cities of the region around the Jordan and moved his tent close to Sodom. ¹³ Now the men of Sodom were extremely wicked sinners against the Lord.

¹⁴ After Lot was separated from him, the Lord said to Abram, “Now, lift up your eyes, and look around from the place where you are. Look north and south, east and west, ¹⁵ because all the land that you see, I will give to you and to your descendants permanently. ¹⁶ I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if a man could count the dust of the earth, then your descendants could also be counted. ¹⁷ Get up, walk through the length and breadth of the land, because I will give it to you.”

¹⁸ Abram moved his tent and went to live by the oaks at Mamre, which are at Hebron, and built an altar there to the Lord.

The Attack on Sodom

Genesis 14

¹ In those days Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goyim ^{[2] 2} made war against Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar). ³ All these joined together in the Valley of Siddim (that is, the Salt Sea ^[3]). ⁴ For twelve years they served Kedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled. ⁵ In the fourteenth year Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him came and struck the Rephaites in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzites in Ham, the Emites in Shaveh Kiriathaim, ⁶ and the Horites in their Mount Seir, all the way to El Paran, which is by the wilderness. ⁷ They returned and came to En Mishpat (that is, Kadesh) and struck all the territory of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites who lived in Hazazon Tamar. ⁸ The king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) went out and lined up for battle in the Valley of Siddim ⁹ against Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goyim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar—four kings against five. ¹⁰ Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits. When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell there. ^[4]Those who survived fled to the hills. ¹¹ The raiders took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food, and then they went on their way. ¹² Because he had been living in Sodom, they took also Lot, the son of Abram’s brother, and his possessions and went on their way.

¹³ One person escaped and came and told Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks that belonged to Mamre the Amorite, the brother of Eshcol and Aner. They were allies of Abram. ¹⁴ When Abram heard that his relative was taken captive, he led out all his trained men who were born in his house, three hundred eighteen of them, and pursued them as far as Dan. ¹⁵ During the night he divided his servants into groups to attack them. He struck them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus. ¹⁶ He brought back all the possessions. He also brought back his relative Lot, and his possessions, and the women also, and the rest of the people.

¹⁷ After Abram’s return from the defeat of Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). ¹⁸ Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was a priest of God Most High. ¹⁹ He blessed Abram and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, ²⁰ and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.”

Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

²¹ The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people and take the goods for yourself.”

²² Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted up my hand to swear to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, ²³ that I will not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, so that you cannot say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ ²⁴ I will take nothing except that which the young men have eaten and the share belonging to the men who went with me, namely, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre. Let them take their share.”

Genesis 11:10 – 13:4

Genesis 11

The Ancestors of Abraham

¹⁰ This is the account about the development of the family of Shem.

Shem was 100 years old and became the father of Arphaxad two years after the flood. ¹¹ Shem lived 500 years after he became the father of Arphaxad, and he became the father of sons and daughters.

¹² Arphaxad lived 35 years and became the father of Shelah. ¹³ Arphaxad lived 403 years after he became the father of Shelah, and he became the father of sons and daughters. ^[1]

¹⁴ Shelah lived 30 years and became the father of Eber. ¹⁵ Shelah lived 403 years after he became the father of Eber, and he became the father of sons and daughters.

¹⁶ Eber lived 34 years and became the father of Peleg. ¹⁷ Eber lived 430 years after he became the father of Peleg, and he became the father of sons and daughters.

¹⁸ Peleg lived 30 years and became the father of Reu. ¹⁹ Peleg lived 209 years after he became the father of Reu, and he became the father of sons and daughters.

²⁰ Reu lived 32 years and became the father of Serug. ²¹ Reu lived 207 years after he became the father of Serug, and he became the father of sons and daughters.

²² Serug lived 30 years and became the father of Nahor. ²³ Serug lived 200 years after he became the father of Nahor, and he became the father of sons and daughters.

²⁴ Nahor lived 29 years and became the father of Terah. ²⁵ Nahor lived 119 years after he became the father of Terah, and he became the father of sons and daughters.

²⁶ Terah lived 70 years and became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

The Development of the Family of Terah

²⁷ Now this is the account about the development ^[2] of the family of Terah.

Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran became the father of Lot. ²⁸ Haran died before his father Terah. He died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

²⁹ Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, who was also the father of Iscah. ³⁰ Sarai was barren. She had no child.

³¹ Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, who was the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, who was the wife of his son Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan. They came to Haran and lived there. ³² The days of Terah were 205 years. Terah died in Haran.

The Call of Abram

Genesis 12

¹ Now the Lord said to Abram, “Get out of your country and away from your relatives and from your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you. ² I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse anyone who dishonors you. All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you.”

⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him. Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. ⁵ Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother’s son, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to travel to the land of Canaan. Eventually they arrived in the land of Canaan. ⁶ Abram passed through the land until he came to the Oak of Moreh at the place called Shechem. The Canaanites were in the land at that time.

⁷ The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” ^[3] Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

⁸ He moved on from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent there, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and proclaimed ^[4] the name of the Lord. ⁹ Abram pulled out from there and kept traveling toward the Negev. ^[5]

The First Trip to Egypt

¹⁰ There was a famine in the land. So Abram went down into Egypt to stay there for a while, because the famine was severe in the land. ¹¹ As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “Look, I know that you are a beautiful woman. ¹² It might happen that when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will keep you alive. ¹³ Please say that you are my sister, so that it will go well for me because of you, and that my life may be preserved on account of you.”

¹⁴ So it happened that when Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians did see that the woman was very beautiful. ¹⁵ Pharaoh’s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. ¹⁶ He treated Abram well for her sake. Abram received sheep, cattle, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

¹⁷ But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with severe diseases ^[6] because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. ¹⁸ Pharaoh summoned Abram and said, “What is this that you have done to me? Why didn’t you tell me that she was your wife? ¹⁹ Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Here is your wife. Take her and go.”

²⁰ Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning him, so they sent him on his way with his wife and all that he had.

Abram and Lot Separate

Genesis 13

¹ Abram went up out of Egypt into the Negev. He went with his wife and with all that he had, and with Lot too. ² Abram was very wealthy in livestock, in silver, and in gold. ³ He went on his journeys from the Negev to Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai. ⁴ He went to the site of the altar that he had made there earlier. There Abram proclaimed ^[7] the name of the Lord.

Genesis 10:1 – 11:9

Genesis 10

¹ Now this is the account about the development of groups of people who descended from Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah. Sons ^[1] were born to them after the flood.

The Descendants of Japheth

² The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek, and Tiras. ^[2]

³ The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.

⁴ The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittim, and the Dodanim. ^[3]

⁵ The islands and coastlands were divided into different lands among these peoples on the basis of their languages, their ethnic groups, and their nations.

The Descendants of Ham

⁶ The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, ^[4] Put, and Canaan.

⁷ The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Ra’amah, and Sabteca.

The sons of Ra’amah were Sheba and Dedan.

⁸ Cush became the father of Nimrod. He was the first to be a mighty warrior on the earth. ⁹ He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. That is why the saying is “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.” ¹⁰ The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Uruk, Akkad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar. ^{[5] 11} From that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, ¹² and Resen between Nineveh and Calah, the great city.

¹³ Mizraim ^[6] became the father of the Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, ¹⁴ Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom the Philistines descended), and the Caphtorim.

¹⁵ Canaan became the father of Sidon (his firstborn) and Heth, ¹⁶ as well as the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, ¹⁷ the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, ¹⁸ the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the families of the Canaanites spread out. ¹⁹ Then the borders of the Canaanites extended from Sidon, southward toward Gerar, as far as Gaza; from there it extended eastward toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.

²⁰ These were the sons of Ham, according to their ethnic groups, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

The Descendants of Shem

²¹ Sons were also born to Shem, the older brother of Japheth, ^[7] the father of all the descendants of Eber.

²² The sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.

²³ The sons of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. ^[8]

²⁴ Arphaxad became the father of Shelah. ^[9] Shelah became the father of Eber. ²⁵ To Eber two sons were born. The name of one was Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided. ^[10]

Eber’s brother’s name was Joktan. ²⁶ Joktan became the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, ²⁷ Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, ²⁸ Obal, Abimael, Sheba, ²⁹ Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these were the sons of Joktan. ³⁰ Their dwelling was from Mesha all the way to Sephar, in the hill country of the east.

³¹ These were the descendants of Shem according to their ethnic groups, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

³² These are the families and groups of peoples descended from the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations. From these, nations spread out over the earth after the flood.

The Division of the Earth

Genesis 11

¹ The whole earth had one language and a single vocabulary. ² As people traveled in the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they settled there. ³ They said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used mud brick instead of stone for building material, and they used tar for mortar. ⁴ They said, “Come, let’s build a city for ourselves and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

⁵ The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people were building. ⁶ The Lord said, “If this is the first thing they are doing as one people, who all have one language, then nothing that they intend to do will be too difficult for them. ⁷ Come, let’s go down there and confuse their language, so that they cannot understand one another’s speech.”

⁸ So the Lord scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ It was named Babel, ^[11] because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.