Genesis 12

About God calling Abram

1 Yahweh said to Abram, “Leave this country belonging to you and your father and leave your people here, and go to a different country that I will show you.

2 ‘I will give you many descendants,

and they will become a great nation.

I will bless you. I will make you very great,

so that many people will know your name.

Then you will bless others.

3 Some people will bless you,

and so I will bless them.

But if anyone curses you,

I will curse them.

I will bless all the nations

just as I am blessing you today.’ ”

4 Abram was an old man now, he was 75 years old. He left the city of Haran and went to a different country called Canaan, because Yahweh had told him to go there. And his nephew Lot went with him. Lot's father and Abram were brothers. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot, and all the men and women who lived with him and worked for him. They took all the things and all the money that they had got in Haran, and they set off.

They went on and on until they arrived in the land of Canaan. 6 At that time people called Canaanites were still living in the land. They had special trees in different places in the country and the people spoke to them.

Abram and all his people stayed in Canaan and went from place to place until they reached the hill country. There was a special tree there in a place called Moreh near the town of Shechem.

7 Yahweh came and appeared to Abram at the tree and said, “This is the country I will give to your descendants.” Then Abram took some big stones and stood them up and made an altar so that he could pray to Yahweh, and then he worshipped him there.

8 From there Abram and all his people went south, and they made their camp in the hill country between a town called Bethel on the west and one called Ai on the east. And Abram did the same as before. He took some big stones and stood them up and made an altar so that he could pray to Yahweh, and then he worshipped him there.

9 Abram and his people stayed in Canaan, but they moved camp and went from place to place towards the south.

About Abram and his wife in Egypt

10 But there was very little food in Canaan. There was so little food that Abram and his family left Canaan and went down to Egypt to live there for a while. 11 When they reached Egypt, before they went into the country, Abram said to his wife Sarai, “You are a beautiful woman. 12 When the Egyptians see you they will think, ‘That is Abram's wife.’ Maybe they will kill me and let you live. 13 So tell them, ‘I am Abram's sister,’ and then they will let me live and they will be kind to me.”

14 When they left Canaan and went into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai really was beautiful. 15 There was a king in Egypt who ruled over the whole country, and some of his servants told him about Abram's beautiful wife. They took Sarai to him, 16 and because she was beautiful the king was kind to Abram. He gave him servants and sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys and camels.

17 But Yahweh didn't want Sarai to stay with the king in his palace, and he sent very bad sicknesses to him and to the people who lived with him and they became very sick.

18 Then the king sent for Abram and asked him, “What have you done to me? Why didn't you tell me that Sarai was your wife? 19 Because you said, ‘This woman is my sister,’ I took her for my wife. That was very wrong to trick me. Now take your wife and go! Get right away from me!”

20 Then the king told his men to send them away, and they took Abram and put him out of the country with all his family and everything they owned.

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