Gen21

GENESIS – Chapter 21

Birth of Isaac.

1The LORD took note of Sarah as he had said he would; the LORD did for her as he had promised.

2Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time that God had stated.

3Abraham gave the name Isaac to this son of his whom Sarah bore him.

4When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded.

5Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

6Sarah then said, “God has given me cause to laugh, and all who hear of it will laugh with me.

7Who would ever have told Abraham,” she added, “that Sarah would nurse children! Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

8The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great banquet on the day of the child’s weaning.

9Sarah noticed the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing with her son Isaac;

10so she demanded of Abraham: “Drive out that slave and her son! No son of that slave is going to share the inheritance with my son Isaac!”

11Abraham was greatly distressed because it concerned a son of his.

12But God said to Abraham: Do not be distressed about the boy or about your slave woman. Obey Sarah, no matter what she asks of you; for it is through Isaac that descendants will bear your name.

13As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, since he too is your offspring.

14Early the next morning Abraham got some bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. Then, placing the child on her back, he sent her away. As she roamed aimlessly in the wilderness of Beer-sheba,

15the water in the skin was used up. So she put the child down under one of the bushes,

16and then went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away; for she said to herself, “I cannot watch the child die.” As she sat opposite him, she wept aloud.

17God heard the boy’s voice, and God’s angel called to Hagar from heaven: “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not fear; God has heard the boy’s voice in this plight of his.

18Get up, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand; for I will make of him a great nation.”

19Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water, and then let the boy drink.

20God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert bowman.

21He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

The Covenant at Beer-sheba.

22 At that time Abimelech, accompanied by Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham: “God is with you in everything you do.

23So now, swear to me by God at this place that you will not deal falsely with me or with my progeny and posterity, but will act as loyally toward me and the land in which you reside as I have acted toward you.”

24Abraham replied, “I so swear.”

25Abraham, however, reproached Abimelech about a well that Abimelech’s servants had seized by force.

26“I have no idea who did that,” Abimelech replied. “In fact, you never told me about it, nor did I ever hear of it until now.”

27Then Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech and the two made a covenant.

28Abraham also set apart seven ewe lambs of the flock,

29and Abimelech asked him, “What is the purpose of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?”

30Abraham answered, “The seven ewe lambs you shall accept from me that you may be my witness that I dug this well.”

31This is why the place is called Beer-sheba; the two of them took an oath there.

32When they had thus made the covenant in Beer-sheba, Abimelech, along with Phicol, the commander of his army, left to return to the land of the Philistines.

33Abraham planted a tamarisk at Beer-sheba, and there he invoked by name the LORD, God the Eternal.

34Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines for a long time.

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THE REVISED NEW AMERICAN BIBLE
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)