Genesis 20–22
1 Abraham journeyed from there toward the Negev, settled between Kadesh and Shur, and then he sojourned in Gerar. 2 Then Abraham said about Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” So Abimelek, king of Gerar, sent for her and took Sarah.
3 But God came to Abimelek in a dream by night and said to him, “You are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”
4 Abimelek had not gone near her, and he said, “Lord, will You slay a righteous nation? 5 Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and did not even she herself say, ‘He is my brother’? In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this.”
6 And God said to him in a dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also kept you from sinning against Me. Therefore, I did not let you touch her. 7 Therefore return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet and he will pray for you. Moreover, you will live. However, if you do not return her, know that you will surely die, you and all who are yours.”
8 So Abimelek rose early in the morning, and called all his servants and told them all these things, and the men were very afraid. 9 Then Abimelek called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? How have I offended you that you would bring on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done things to me that should not have been done.” 10 Then Abimelek said to Abraham, “What were you thinking of, that you did this thing?”
11 Abraham said, “Because I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will slay me because of my wife. 12 Still, indeed, she is my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother. She became my wife. 13 When God caused me to travel from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is your kindness which you must show me: Every place where we go, say concerning me, He is my brother.’”
14 Then Abimelek took sheep, oxen, and male and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and returned his wife Sarah to him. 15 Abimelek said, “My land is before you; settle wherever it pleases you.”
16 To Sarah he said, “I have given your brother a thousand shekels of silver. It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you, and before everyone you are vindicated.”
17 So Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelek, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children. 18 For the Lord had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelek because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
Chapter 21
1 The Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken. 2 For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time that God had spoken to him. 3 Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. 4 Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5 Now Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6 And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh. All who hear will laugh with me.” 7 Also she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
8 So the child grew and was weaned. Then Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. 9 Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. 10 Therefore she said to Abraham, “Throw out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son, Isaac.”
11 This matter was very displeasing in Abraham’s sight because of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be upset concerning the boy and your slave wife. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to what she says, for in Isaac your descendants will be called. 13 Yet I will also make a nation of the son of the slave woman, because he is your offspring.”
14 So Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and sent her away with the child. So she departed and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.
15 When the water in the skin was gone, she placed the child under one of the shrubs. 16 Then she went and sat down across from him at a distance of about a bowshot, for she said to herself, “Let me not see the death of the child.” She sat across from him, and lifted up her voice and wept.
17 And God heard the boy’s voice. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Arise, pick up the boy and hold him in your hands, for I will make him a great nation.”
19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
20 God was with the boy; and he grew and lived in the wilderness and became an archer. 21 He lived in the Wilderness of Paran, and his mother found a wife for him out of the land of Egypt.
22 Now it came to pass at that time that Abimelek and Phicol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham, saying, “God is with you in all that you do. 23 Now therefore, swear to me by God that you will not deal deceitfully with me, or with my children, or with my descendants. Instead, according to the kindness that I have shown to you, you will show to me and to the land where you have lived.”
24 Abraham said, “I will swear.”
25 Then Abraham complained to Abimelek about a well of water that Abimelek’s servants had violently seized. 26 And Abimelek said, “I do not know who has done this. You did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today.”
27 So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelek, and the two of them made a covenant. 28 Then Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. 29 And Abimelek said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set by themselves?”
30 And he said, “You shall take these seven ewe lambs from my hand so that they may be a witness that I have dug this well.”
31 Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because the two of them swore an oath there.
32 Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelek rose with Phicol, the commander of his army, and they returned to the land of the Philistines. 33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. 34 Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines many days.
Chapter 22
1 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!”
And he said, “Here I am.”
2 Then He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”
3 So Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place that God had told him. 4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from a distance. 5 Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there and worship and then return to you.”
6 So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. 7 But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!”
And he said, “Here I am, my son.”
Then he said, “Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together.
9 Then they came to the place that God had told him. So Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on the wood. 10 Then Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him out of heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!”
And he said, “Here I am.”
12 Then He said, “Do not lay your hands on the boy or do anything to him, because now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your only son from Me.”
13 Then Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up as a burnt offering in the place of his son. 14 Abraham called the name of that place The Lord Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the Lord it will be provided.”
15 Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham out of heaven a second time, 16 and said, “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will indeed bless you and I will indeed multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens and as the sand that is on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gate of their enemies. 18 Through your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
19 So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. Then Abraham lived at Beersheba.
20 After these things Abraham was told, “Milkah has also borne children to your brother Nahor: 21 Uz his firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel the father of Aram, 22 Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.” 23 Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. Milkah gave birth to these eight to Nahor, Abraham’s brother. 24 His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maakah.
Matthew 6:19–34
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in nor steal, 21 for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
22 “The light of the body is the eye. Therefore, if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is unclear, your whole body will be full of darkness. Therefore, if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
25 “Therefore, I say to you, take no thought about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they do not sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they? 27 Who among you by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature?
28 “Why take thought about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: They neither work, nor do they spin. 29 Yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these. 30 Therefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is here and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore, take no thought, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 (For the Gentiles seek after all these things.) For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be given to you. 34 Therefore, take no thought about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take thought about the things of itself. Sufficient to the day is the trouble thereof.”