אֵת

After Abram returned from defeating Chedorlaomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).

…that I will not accept even a thread, or a strap of a sandal, or anything that belongs to you, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’

Abram continued, “Behold, You have given me no offspring, so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

And the LORD took him outside and said, “Now look to the heavens and count the stars, if you are able.” Then He told him, “So shall your offspring be.”

The LORD also told him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”

So Abram brought all these to Him, split each of them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. The birds, however, he did not cut in half.

And the birds of prey descended on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.

But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will depart with many possessions.

On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—

…the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,

Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,

Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

So after he had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to Abram to be his wife.

Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”

Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.

I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.”

No longer will you be called Abram, but your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.

I will make you exceedingly fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will descend from you.

I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

And to you and your descendants I will give the land where you are residing—all the land of Canaan—as an eternal possession; and I will be their God.”

God also said to Abraham, “You must keep My covenant—you and your descendants in the generations after you.

You are to circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and this will be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.

But if any male is not circumcised, he will be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, do not call her Sarai, for her name is to be Sarah.

And I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will descend from her.”

But God replied, “Your wife Sarah will indeed bear you a son, and you are to name him Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

As for Ishmael, I have heard you, and I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He will become the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.

But I will establish My covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this time next year.”

On that very day Abraham took his son Ishmael and all those born in his household or purchased with his money—every male among the members of Abraham’s household—and he circumcised them, just as God had told him.