Genesis 12

1Yahweh said to Abram, “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.

2I will make a great nation of you. I will bless you and give you a great name, and you will be a blessing.

3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who scorns you I will curse. Through you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

4Abram set out as Yahweh had spoken to him, and Lot went along with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.

5Abram brought his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, along with all the goods they had gathered and the people they had gained in Haran. They set out to go to the land of Canaan, and they came into the land of Canaan.

6Abram traveled through the land as far as the place of Shechem, by the oak of Moreh. At the time, the Canaanites lived in the land.

7Yahweh appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” There Abram built an altar to Yahweh, who had appeared to him.

8He moved on from there to the hills east of Bethel and set up his tent, with Bethel lying to the west and Ai to the east. He built an altar to Yahweh there and called on the name of Yahweh.

9Abram kept moving, traveling in stages toward the Negev.

10When famine came to the land, Abram went down to Egypt to live there as a foreigner, since the famine in the land was harsh.

11As he came close to entering Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “Listen, I know that you are a woman who is beautiful to look at.

12Once the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘She is his wife,’ and they will kill me and keep you alive.

13Please say that you are my sister, so that things go well for me on your account, and I stay alive because of you.”

14When Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians saw how very beautiful the woman was.

15Pharaoh’s officials also saw her and spoke highly of her to Pharaoh, and the woman was brought into Pharaoh’s household.

16Because of her, he was good to Abram, and Abram came to own flocks and herds, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

17But Yahweh brought terrible plagues on Pharaoh and his household over the matter of Abram’s wife Sarai.

18Then Pharaoh sent for Abram and said, “What have you done to me? Why did you not let me know that she was your wife?

19Why did you claim, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? So now, there is your wife. Take her and be on your way!”

20Pharaoh put men in charge of him, and they escorted him out along with his wife and everything that belonged to him.