Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your
kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and
make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless
those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in
you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him.
Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And
Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their
possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had
acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan.
When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land
to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the
Canaanites were in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and
said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there
an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. From there he moved
to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent,
with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an
altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. And Abram
journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.
Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt
to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. When he
was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that
you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see
you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but
they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well
with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your
sake.” When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman
was very beautiful. And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they
praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's
house. And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep,
oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys,
and camels.
But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues
because of Sarai, Abram's wife. So Pharaoh called Abram and said,
“What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she
was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took
her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.”
And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away
with his wife and all that he had.
