UST GEN Chapter 12

God Tells Abram to Move to Canaan

12:1-9

12 One day Yahweh commanded Abram, “You must move away from your homeland and your relatives, including your father’s family, and move to the land that I will guide you to.

2 I will make you and your descendants become an important people group,

and I will cause you all to prosper.

I will make you well-known,

and you and your descendants will bless many people.

3 I will bless everyone who blesses you,

but I will curse anyone who curses you.

I will use you and your descendants

to bless all the people on the earth.”

4 So Abram left the city of Haran exactly as Yahweh had commanded him to do, and his nephew Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left from there. 5 He took with him his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot and everything that they owned, including servants and everything else they had acquired in the city of Haran, and they all started traveling to the region of Canaan. When they arrived there, 6 they traveled through that region as far as the city of Shechem, to Moreh’s oak tree. At that time the Canaanites were still living in that land, 7 but Yahweh came to Abram and said to him, “I will give this land to your descendants.” So Abram built an altar out of large stones in that place and burned sacrifices on it to worship Yahweh, because Yahweh had appeared to him there.

8 From the city of Shechem, Abram and his family moved south to the hill country that was east of the town of Bethel. They set up their tents between Bethel to the west and the town of Ai to the east. There Abram built another altar and burned sacrifices on it to worship Yahweh, and he addressed Yahweh by his name as he worshiped him. 9 Then Abram and his family moved from place to place southward until they reached the Negev Desert.

Abram and Sarai Go to the Country of Egypt to Escape a Famine

12:10-20

10 Now there was a serious food shortage in that region, that was so severe that Abram and his family left there and went down to the country of Egypt to live for a while. 11 Just before they arrived in Egypt, Abram said to his wife Sarai, “Please listen to me: you are a very beautiful woman. 12 When the people in Egypt see you with me, they will say that you are my wife. Then they will kill me and let you live so that they can take you. 13 So please tell people that you are my sister so that they will treat me well because of you and let me live.”

14 That is exactly what happened: When Abram and his family arrived in the country of Egypt, the people there noticed that Sarai was truly very beautiful. 15 When some officers under Pharaoh the king of Egypt noticed her, they highly recommended her to him. So he had them bring her to his palace to be one of his wives. 16 The king thought that Abram was Sarai’s brother, so he treated him well. He gave him many sheep and cattle, as well as men and women servants, male and female donkeys, and camels.

17 But since King Pharaoh had taken Abram’s wife Sarai, Yahweh afflicted the king and his family with severe illnesses. 18 So the king summoned Abram before him and said to him, “You have treated me very badly! You should have told me that Sarai is your wife! 19 You should not have said that she is your sister, so that I ended up taking her to be my wife! So now, here is your wife. Take her and leave my country!” 20 Then King Pharaoh ordered some of his soldiers to make sure that Abram left, so they forced him to leave the country, along with his wife and everything that he owned.