Genesis 21

1Yahweh visited Sarah as he had said, and Yahweh did for Sarah what he had promised.

2Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the appointed time God had spoken of to him.

3Abraham named his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to 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 brought me laughter; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”

7And she said, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

8The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast.

9But Sarah saw the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham laughing.

10So she said to Abraham, “Drive out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman will not share the inheritance with my son, with Isaac.”

11The matter was very distressing to Abraham because of his son.

12But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, for it is through Isaac that your offspring will be named.

13I will also make the son of the slave woman into a nation, because he is your offspring.”

14Early the next morning Abraham took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He put them on her shoulder, gave her the child, and sent her away. She went off and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

15When the water in the skin was gone, she left the child under one of the bushes.

16Then she went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot watch the child die.” As she sat opposite him, she wept aloud.

17God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is wrong, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the boy crying 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, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an archer.

21He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

22At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything you do.

23So now swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my children or my descendants. Show me and the land where you have been living as a foreigner the same kindness I have shown you.”

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 has done this. You did not tell me, and I did not hear of it until today.”

27So Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant.

28Abraham set seven ewe lambs from the flock apart by themselves,

29and Abimelech asked Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs you have set apart by themselves?”

30He said, “Accept these seven ewe lambs from my hand as 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 at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of Yahweh, the Everlasting God.

34And Abraham lived as a foreigner in the land of the Philistines for a long time.