Genesis
Chapter 21
1 God visited Sarah as he promised, and did to Sarah what he had said.
2 Sarah became pregnant and gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age, at the exact time God had told him.
3 Abraham named his son, who Sarah gave birth to, Isaac.
4 Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God told him to do.
5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6 Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears this will laugh with me.”
7 She asked, “Who would have thought to tell Abraham that Sarah could nurse children? Yet I have given him a son in his old age.”
8 The child grew and was weaned. Abraham had a big feast on the day Isaac was weaned.
9 Sarah saw Hagar the Egyptian’s son, whom she had given to Abraham, making fun.
10 So she told Abraham, “Send away this servant woman and her son, because the son of this servant woman will not share the inheritance with my son, Isaac.”
11 Abraham was very upset about his son.
12 God told Abraham, “Don’t be upset because of the boy and your servant. Listen to everything Sarah tells you, because your descendants will be named through Isaac.”
13 I will also make a nation from the son of the servant woman, because he is your descendant.
14 Abraham got up early in the morning, took some bread and a water bottle, gave them to Hagar, put them on her shoulder along with the child, and sent her off. Then she left and walked around in the Beersheba desert.
15 The water in the bottle ran out, and she put the child under a bush.
16 She went and sat down some distance away, about as far as an arrow can fly, because she said, “I can’t watch the boy die.” So she sat away from him, cried out loud, and wept.
17 God heard the boy crying, and God’s angel spoke to Hagar from heaven, saying, “What’s wrong, Hagar? Don’t be afraid, because God has heard the boy crying where he is.”
18 Get up, pick up the boy, and hold him; because I will make him into a great nation.
19 God made her see, and she noticed a water well; she went, filled her jar with water, and gave the boy a drink.
20 God was with the boy; he grew up, lived in the desert, and became a bowman.
21 He lived in the Paran desert, and his mother got him a wife from Egypt.
22 At that time, Abimelech and Phichol, his army commander, told Abraham, “God is with you in everything you do.”
23 Now promise me here before God that you will not lie to me, or to my son, or to my grandson. Instead, treat me and the land where you have lived as a foreigner with the same kindness I have shown you.
24 Abraham said, “I will make a promise.”
25 Abraham scolded Abimelech about a water well that Abimelech’s workers had forcefully taken.
26 Abimelech said, “I don’t know who did this; you didn’t tell me, and I haven’t heard about it until today.”
27 Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech; and they both made an agreement.
28 Abraham placed seven female sheep from the flock apart.
29 Abimelech asked Abraham, “What do these seven young female sheep you have placed apart mean?”
30 He said, “Take these seven young female sheep from me so they will be proof that I dug this well.”
31 So he named that place Beersheba, because they both made a promise there.
32 So they agreed on a promise at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phichol, the leader of his army, went back to the land of the Philistines.
33 Abraham planted trees in Beersheba and prayed to God, who lives forever.
34 Abraham lived in the Philistines’ land for a long time.