The Birth of Isaac

211 God visited Sarah exactly as he said he would; God did to Sarah what he promised: 2 Sarah became pregnant and gave Abraham a son in his old age, and at the very time God had set. 3 Abraham named him Isaac. 4 When his son was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him just as God had commanded. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born. 6 Sarah said, God has blessed me with laughter and all who get the news will laugh with me! 7 She also said, Whoever would have suggested to Abraham that Sarah would one day nurse a baby! Yet here I am! I've given the old man a son!

Hagar and Ishmael Sent Away

8 The baby grew and was weaned. Abraham threw a big party on the day Isaac was weaned.

9 One day Sarah saw the son that Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, poking fun at her son Isaac. 10 She told Abraham, "Get rid of this slave woman and her son. No child of this slave is going to share inheritance with my son Isaac!" 11 The matter gave great pain to Abraham - after all, Ishmael was his son. 12 But God spoke to Abraham, "Don't feel badly about the boy and your maid. Do whatever Sarah tells you. Your descendants will come through Isaac. 13 Regarding your maid's son, be assured that I'll also develop a great nation from him - he's your son too."

14 Abraham got up early the next morning, got some food together and a canteen of water for Hagar, put them on her back and sent her away with the child. She wandered off into the desert of Beersheba. 15 When the water was gone, she left the child under a shrub 16 and went off, fifty yards or so. She said, "I can't watch my son die." As she sat, she broke into sobs. 17 Meanwhile, God heard the boy crying. The angel of God called from Heaven to Hagar, "What's wrong, Hagar? Don't be afraid. God has heard the boy and knows the fix he's in. 18 Up now; go get the boy. Hold him tight. I'm going to make of him a great nation." 19 Just then God opened her eyes. She looked. She saw a well of water. She went to it and filled her canteen and gave the boy a long, cool drink. 20 God was on the boy's side as he grew up. He lived out in the desert and became a skilled archer. 21 He lived in the Paran wilderness. And his mother got him a wife from Egypt.

The Covenant between Abraham and Abimelech

22 At about that same time, Abimelech and the captain of his troops, Phicol, spoke to Abraham: "No matter what you do, God is on your side. 23 So swear to me that you won't do anything underhanded to me or any of my family. For as long as you live here, swear that you'll treat me and my land as well as I've treated you." 24 Abraham said, "I swear it." 25 At the same time, Abraham confronted Abimelech over the matter of a well of water that Abimelech's servants had taken. 26 Abimelech said, "I have no idea who did this; you never told me about it; this is the first I've heard of it." 27 So the two of them made a covenant. Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech. 28 Abraham set aside seven sheep from his flock. 29 Abimelech said, "What does this mean? These seven sheep you've set aside." 30 Abraham said, "It means that when you accept these seven sheep, you take it as proof that I dug this well, that it's my well." 31 That's how the place got named Beersheba (the Oath-Well), because the two of them swore a covenant oath there. 32 After they had made the covenant at Beersheba, Abimelech and his commander, Phicol, left and went back to Philistine territory.

33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and worshiped God there, praying to the Eternal God. 34 Abraham lived in Philistine country for a long time.

Man's Disobedience

31 The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: "Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?" 2 The Woman said to the serpent, "Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. 3 It's only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'Don't eat from it; don't even touch it or you'll die.'" 4 The serpent told the Woman, "You won't die. 5 God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you'll see what's really going on. You'll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil."

6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it - she'd know everything! - she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate. 7 Immediately the two of them did "see what's really going on" - saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves. 8 When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.

9 God called to the Man: "Where are you?" 10 He said, "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid."

11 God said, "Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?" 12 The Man said, "The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it." 13 God said to the Woman, "What is this that you've done?" "The serpent seduced me," she said, "and I ate."

14 God told the serpent: "Because you've done this, you're cursed, cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals, Cursed to slink on your belly and eat dirt all your life. 15 I'm declaring war between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He'll wound your head, you'll wound his heel."

16 He told the Woman: "I'll multiply your pains in childbirth; you'll give birth to your babies in pain. You'll want to please your husband, but he'll lord it over you."

17 He told the Man: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree That I commanded you not to eat from, 'Don't eat from this tree,' The very ground is cursed because of you; getting food from the ground Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife; you'll be working in pain all your life long. 18 The ground will sprout thorns and weeds, you'll get your food the hard way, Planting and tilling and harvesting, 19 sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk, Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried; you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt."

20 The Man, known as Adam, named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living.

21 God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.

22 God said, "The Man has become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to evil. What if he now should reach out and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never - this cannot happen!" 23 So God expelled them from the Garden of Eden and sent them to work the ground, the same dirt out of which they'd been made. 24 He threw them out of the garden and stationed angel-cherubim and a revolving sword of fire east of it, guarding the path to the Tree-of-Life.