The birth of Isaac
1Yahweh took note of Sarah as he had said he would, and Yahweh did for Sarah what he had promised. 2Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the very time God had told him. 3Abraham named the son born to him, the one Sarah bore him, Isaac. 4Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh with me.” 7She said, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
Hagar and Ishmael sent away
8The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. 9Sarah saw the son that Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, playing. 10She said to Abraham, “Drive out this slave woman and her son. The son of this slave woman will not share the inheritance with my son, with Isaac.” 11The matter distressed Abraham greatly, because of his son. 12But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to Sarah — do whatever she tells you — for it is through Isaac that your offspring will be named. 13And I will also make a nation of the slave woman’s son, because he too is your offspring.” 14Abraham rose early the next morning, took bread and a skin of water, and 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. 15When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes. 16Then she went and sat down at a distance, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot watch the boy die.” She sat there at a distance, and she lifted up her voice and wept. 17God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven. “What troubles you, Hagar?” he said. “Do not be afraid — God has heard the voice of the boy, right where he is. 18Get up, lift the boy up, and hold him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” 19Then 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. 20God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an archer. 21He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother got him a wife from the land of Egypt.
The covenant at Beersheba
22At that time Abimelech, together with Phicol the commander of his army, said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything you do. 23Now swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me, or with my children, or with my descendants. Show me the same kindness I have shown you — to me, and to the land where you have lived as a foreigner.” 24Abraham said, “I swear it.” 25Then Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized. 26Abimelech said, “I do not know who did this. You never told me, and I had not heard of it until today.” 27So Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant. 28Abraham set apart seven ewe lambs from the flock. 29Abimelech asked Abraham, “What are these seven ewe lambs you have set apart?” 30He said, “Accept these seven ewe lambs from my hand, that they may be a witness for me that I dug this well.” 31That is why that place was called Beersheba — because there the two of them swore an oath. 32So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army got up and returned to the land of the Philistines. 33Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of Yahweh, the Everlasting God. 34And Abraham lived in the land of the Philistines for a long time.
