While I was living in the land of Negev, there came a famine. Because of the famine, I decided to travel to Egypt with my family. Because my wife is very beautiful woman, I didn’t want the Egyptians to know that I am her husband because they would kill me and let her live. I told Sarai to say that she was my sister, so the Egyptians would treat me well and my life would be spared. When I came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw my wife Sarai and they saw that she was a very beautiful woman. They then took her to Pharaoh and she was brought to his palace. I was treated well by Pharaoh as I had planned, but I didn’t like that they took my wife away from me. Pharaoh also gave me sheep, cattle, donkeys, servants and camels. Because the Egyptians had taken my wife, God sent a terrible diseases unto Pharaoh and his household. Pharaoh was very mad at me because I had lied about Sarai being my wife, so he gave me my wife back and he told me and all my people to leave Egypt.

When the Lord came to me in a vision, He told me that He was my shield and my great reward. I doubted God because I was childless and I thought my servant Eliezer would be my heir. But, the Lord promised to me that Eliezer would not be my heir and that my heir would be my own son who is my own flesh and blood. God told me to go outside and look up into the night sky. He told me to count the stars in the sky and He said that was going to be the number of descendants I would have. The Lord also told me that my descendants would be strangers in a unknown country and they would be enslaved there for 400 years. God said He would punish the nation they served as slaves and that they would come out of the land with great pocessions. He said that I would be buried at a good old age and then He made a covenant promising that my descendants would be given the land from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates River.

When I was 99, the Lord appeared to me and He told me that if I walked before Him faithfully I would be blameless. He then changed my name from Abram to Abraham and He made a covenant with me. God said that He would greatly increase my numbers, I would be the father of many nations, He would make me very fruitful, He would make nations of me and kings would come from me. His covenant with me was an everlasting covenant between Him, me and my descendants after me, for the generations to come. He then promised me the whole land of Canaan and that He would be the God of all my descendants to come. The Lord then told me that every male living with me had to be circumcised. He told me that circumcision is the sign of the covenant He made with me. God said that every boy who is eight years old must be circumcised, whether born in my household or a foreigner living with me. He said that any male who didn’t get circumcised would be cut of from his people because that was considered breaking the covenant. He then changed my wife Sarai’s name to Sarah and He said that we would bless her with a child who would be born in a year. He told me that she would be the mother of nations and kings would come from her. I couldn’t believe what I heard, I was going to have a son at age 100 and I doubted that Sarah was going to give birth at age 90. I wondered why God wouldn’t bless Ishmael with the same blessing, but God promised me that I would have a son and He told me to call him Isaac. The Lord also blessed Ishmael because of what I said and He promised that he would also be fruitful and greatly increase his numbers. He said that he would be the ruler of twelve nations and He would make him into a great nation. That same day I circumcised every male among me including my son, just as the Lord told me to do.

While I was living near the trees of Mamre, I was sitting at the entrance of my tent, when the Lord appeared to me. I saw three men walking towards me and when I saw them, I quickly went from my tent to meet them and I bowed to them. I told them I would bring water to wash their feet and that they could rest under a tree. I hurried to my tent and I told my wife Sarah to make some bread and some servants prepared a calf, so they could have a meal to eat. While they were eating, they asked me where my wife was, so I told them that she was in the tent. One of the men told me that they would return to me at around the same time next year and by that time, my wife would give birth to a son. Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent and she laughed when she heard that she would be bearing a son. Me and Sarah were both very old and she was already past the age of childbearing. God asked me why Sarah laughed and He said that nothing is too hard for the Lord. Sarah was afraid and she lied and said that she did not laugh. God told me that when He would return at the appointed time next year, Sarah would have given birth to a son.

When God told me to take my only son Isaac to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him as a burnt offering to Him, I was confused and mad. Isaac was my only son, the one God had promised to give me and now he wanted me to sacrifice him. Even though I didn’t want to sacrifice him, I listened to the Lord. The next day, I got up and I loaded my donkey, I cut wood for the offering and I set off with my son and two servants up the mountain. On the third day of the journey, I saw the mountain in the distance and I told my servants that me and my son would go up the mountain to worship and then we would come back to them. I gave Isaac the wood to carry up the mountain and I carried a knife and the supplies for the fire. As we were walking, Isaac asked me where the lamb for the burnt offering was, so I told him that the Lord would provide. When we got to the place that God told me about, I built a altar and I put the wood on top of it. I then bound up my son with rope and I laid him on top of the offering. I took the knife I brought with me and I was about to kill my son, when I heard the voice of a angel of the Lord. The angel told me not to lay a hand on my son and said that I feared God because I didn’t withdraw from killing my son. God provided a ram for me, which I found in a thicket and I took it and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of my son. Because I did not withdraw from killing my son, the Lord promised to bless me and make my descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the beach. He also promised that my descendants would take possession of the cities of their enemies and all nations on earth would be blessed because I obeyed God.