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Genesis 21

Birth of Isaac.^*

1The LORD took note of Sarah as he had said he would; the LORD did for her as he had promised.^a

2Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time that God had stated.^b

3Abraham gave the name Isaac to this son of his whom Sarah bore him.^c

4When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded.^d

5Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

6Sarah then said, “God has given me cause to laugh,^* and all who hear of it will laugh with me.^e

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

8The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great banquet on the day of the child’s weaning.

9Sarah noticed the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing with her son Isaac;

10so she demanded of Abraham: “Drive out that slave and her son! No son of that slave is going to share the inheritance with my son Isaac!”^f

11Abraham was greatly distressed because it concerned a son of his.^*

12But God said to Abraham: Do not be distressed about the boy or about your slave woman. Obey Sarah, no matter what she asks of you; for it is through Isaac that descendants will bear your name.^g

13As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also,^* since he too is your offspring.

14Early the next morning Abraham got some bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. Then, placing the child on her back,^* he sent her away. As she roamed aimlessly in the wilderness of Beer-sheba,

15the water in the skin was used up. So she put the child down under one of the bushes,

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

17God heard the boy’s voice, and God’s angel called to Hagar from heaven: “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not fear; God has heard the boy’s voice in this plight of his.^h

18Get up, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand; for I will make of him a great nation.”

19Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water, and then let the boy drink.

20God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert bowman.

21He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

The Covenant at Beer-sheba.

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

23So now, swear to me by God at this place^* that you will not deal falsely with me or with my progeny and posterity, but will act as loyally toward me and the land in which you reside as I have acted toward you.”

24Abraham replied, “I so swear.”

25Abraham, however, reproached Abimelech about a well that Abimelech’s servants had seized by force.

26“I have no idea who did that,” Abimelech replied. “In fact, you never told me about it, nor did I ever hear of it until now.”

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

28Abraham also set apart seven ewe lambs of the flock,

29and Abimelech asked him, “What is the purpose of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?”

30Abraham answered, “The seven ewe lambs you shall accept from me that you may be my witness that I dug this well.”

31This is why the place is called Beer-sheba; the two of them took an oath there.

32When they had thus made the covenant in Beer-sheba, Abimelech, along with Phicol, the commander of his army, left to return to the land of the Philistines.^*

33Abraham planted a tamarisk at Beer-sheba, and there he invoked by name the LORD, God the Eternal.^*

34Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines for a long time.

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Genesis 22

The Testing of Abraham.^*

1Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test and said to him: Abraham! “Here I am!” he replied.^a

2Then God said: Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.^b

3Early the next morning Abraham saddled his donkey, took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac, and after cutting the wood for the burnt offering, set out for the place of which God had told him.

4On the third day Abraham caught sight of the place from a distance.

5Abraham said to his servants: “Stay here with the donkey, while the boy and I go on over there. We will worship and then come back to you.”

6So Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two walked on together,

7Isaac spoke to his father Abraham. “Father!” he said. “Here I am,” he replied. Isaac continued, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”

8“My son,” Abraham answered, “God will provide the sheep for the burnt offering.” Then the two walked on together.

9When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. Next he bound^* his son Isaac, and put him on top of the wood on the altar.^c

10Then Abraham reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.^d

11But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!” “Here I am,” he answered.

12“Do not lay your hand on the boy,” said the angel. “Do not do the least thing to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you did not withhold from me your son, your only one.”^e

13Abraham looked up and saw a single ram caught by its horns in the thicket. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son.^*

14Abraham named that place Yahweh-yireh;^* hence people today say, “On the mountain the LORD will provide.”

15^* A second time the angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven

16^f and said: “I swear by my very self—oracle of the LORD—that because you acted as you did in not withholding from me your son, your only one,

17I will bless you and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore; your descendants will take possession of the gates of their enemies,^g

18and in your descendants all the nations of the earth will find blessing, because you obeyed my command.”^h

19Abraham then returned to his servants, and they set out together for Beer-sheba, where Abraham lived.

Nahor’s Descendants.^*

20Some time afterward, the news came to Abraham: “Milcah too has borne sons to your brother Nahor:

21Uz, his firstborn, his brother Buz, Kemuel the father of Aram,

22Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.”

23Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham’s brother.

24His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore children: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.

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Genesis 23

Purchase of a Burial Plot.^*

1The span of Sarah’s life was one hundred and twenty-seven years.

2She died in Kiriath-arba—now Hebron—in the land of Canaan, and Abraham proceeded to mourn and weep for her.

3Then he left the side of his deceased wife and addressed the Hittites:^*

4“Although I am a resident alien^* among you, sell me from your holdings a burial place, that I may bury my deceased wife.”^a

5The Hittites answered Abraham: “Please,

6sir, listen to us! You are a mighty leader among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial sites. None of us would deny you his burial ground for the burial of your dead.”

7Abraham, however, proceeded to bow low before the people of the land, the Hittites,

8and said to them: “If you will allow me room for burial of my dead, listen to me! Intercede for me with Ephron, son of Zohar,

9so that he will sell me the cave of Machpelah that he owns; it is at the edge of his field. Let him sell it to me in your presence at its full price for a burial place.”

10Now Ephron was sitting with the Hittites. So Ephron the Hittite replied to Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, all who entered the gate of his city:

11“Please, sir, listen to me! I give you both the field and the cave in it; in the presence of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead!”

12But Abraham, after bowing low before the people of the land,

13addressed Ephron in the hearing of these men: “If only you would please listen to me! I will pay you the price of the field. Accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.”

14Ephron replied to Abraham, “Please,

15sir, listen to me! A piece of land worth four hundred shekels^* of silver—what is that between you and me? Bury your dead!”

16^b Abraham accepted Ephron’s terms; he weighed out to him the silver that Ephron had stipulated in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver at the current market value.^*

17^c Thus Ephron’s field in Machpelah, facing Mamre, together with its cave and all the trees anywhere within its limits, was conveyed

18to Abraham by purchase in the presence of the Hittites, all who entered the gate of Ephron’s city.

19After this, Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave of the field of Machpelah, facing Mamre—now Hebron—in the land of Canaan.

20Thus the field with its cave was transferred from the Hittites to Abraham as a burial place.

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Mark 4:1-25

1^* On another occasion^a he began to teach by the sea.^* A very large crowd gathered around him so that he got into a boat on the sea and sat down. And the whole crowd was beside the sea on land.^b

2And he taught them at length in parables, and in the course of his instruction he said to them,

3^* “Hear this! A sower went out to sow.

4And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up.

5Other seed fell on rocky ground where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep.

6And when the sun rose, it was scorched and it withered for lack of roots.

7Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it and it produced no grain.

8And some seed fell on rich soil and produced fruit. It came up and grew and yielded thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”

9He added, “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.”

The Purpose of the Parables.

10And when he was alone, those present along with the Twelve questioned him about the parables.

11^* He answered them, “The mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to you. But to those outside everything comes in parables,

12so that

‘they may look and see but not perceive,

and hear and listen but not understand,

in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.’”^c

13^* Jesus said to them, “Do you not understand this parable?^d Then how will you understand any of the parables?

14The sower sows the word.

15These are the ones on the path where the word is sown. As soon as they hear, Satan comes at once and takes away the word sown in them.

16And these are the ones sown on rocky ground who, when they hear the word, receive it at once with joy.

17But they have no root; they last only for a time. Then when tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

18Those sown among thorns are another sort. They are the people who hear the word,

19but worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things intrude and choke the word, and it bears no fruit.

20But those sown on rich soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.”

Parable of the Lamp.

21^e He said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed, and not to be placed on a lampstand?^f

22For there is nothing hidden except to be made visible; nothing is secret except to come to light.^g

23Anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear.”

24He also told them, “Take care what you hear. The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you, and still more will be given to you.^h

25To the one who has, more will be given; from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”ⁱ

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