Genesis 21
1 The LORD cared for Sarah, as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised.
2 Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the appointed time God had told him.
3 Abraham named the son born to him Isaac, the one Sarah had borne him.
4 Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.
5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6 Sarah said, “God has made me laugh; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”
7 She added, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
8 The boy grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.
9 Sarah saw that Hagar the Egyptian’s son, whom she had borne to Abraham, was mocking.
10 She said to Abraham, “Send this slave woman away with her son, because this slave woman’s son will not inherit with my son, with Isaac.”
11 This greatly displeased Abraham because of his son.
12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to Sarah in everything she says to you, because your descendants will be named through Isaac.
13 But I will also make the slave woman’s son into a nation, because he is your offspring.”
14 Abraham got up early in the morning, took bread and a skin of water, gave them to Hagar, placing them on her shoulder along with the boy, and sent her away. She left and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.
15 When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes.
16 Then she went and sat down at a distance, as far as a bowshot away, because she said, “I don’t want to see the boy die.” She sat there at a distance and wept aloud.
17 God heard the boy’s voice, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid, because God has heard the boy’s voice where he is.
18 Get up, lift the boy and take him by the hand, because I will make him into a great nation.”
19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
20 God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an archer.
21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother found him a wife from the land of Egypt.
22 At that time Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything you do.
23 Now swear to me here by God that you will not deceive me, or my son, or my grandson. As I have shown you loyalty, you will show loyalty to me and to the land where you live as a foreigner.”
24 Abraham replied, “I swear.”
25 But Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized by force.
26 Abimelech said, “I don’t know who did this. You didn’t tell me either, and I only heard about it today.”
27 Then Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a treaty.
28 Abraham set aside seven ewe lambs from the flock.
29 Abimelech asked Abraham, “What do these seven ewe lambs that you set aside mean?”
30 He replied, “Accept these seven ewe lambs from my hand, so they may serve as a witness for me that I dug this well.”
31 That is why the place was named Beersheba, because the two of them swore an oath there.
32 They made a treaty at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, got up and returned to the land of the Philistines.
33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba and there called on the name of the LORD, the Eternal God.
34 Abraham lived as a foreigner in the land of the Philistines for many days.
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