Knox Bible

1

And now, true to his undertaking, the Lord visited Sara and fulfilled his promise;

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old as she was, she conceived and bore a son at the very time God had foretold.

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To this son whom Sara had borne him, Abraham gave the name of Isaac,

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and circumcised him, as God had commanded, when he was eight days old.

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He himself was then a hundred years old; so great an age had he reached before Isaac was born to him.

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And Sara cried out, God has made me laugh for joy; whoever hears of this will laugh (Isaac) with me.

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Who would have thought, she added, that Abraham would ever be told, Sara is nursing a son, born to thee in thy old age?

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The boy grew, and was weaned; on the day of his weaning, Abraham made a great feast,

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and Sara found the son of the Egyptian woman, Agar, mocking her own son Isaac.✻ Whereupon she said to Abraham,

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Rid thyself of this slave-woman and her son; it cannot be that the son of a slave should divide the inheritance with my own son, Isaac.

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At this Abraham was greatly distressed on his son’s behalf;

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but God said to him, Do not take it to heart so, the boy’s lot and the lot of thy slave; attend to all Sara’s bidding, for indeed it is through Isaac that thy posterity shall be traced.

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As for the slave’s child, I will make him, too, the founder of a great nation; he too is thy son.

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So, when he rose next morning, Abraham fetched some bread and a bottle of water, which he put on her shoulder, and bade her take the boy and begone. Thus she left him, and soon she was wandering to and fro in the desert of Bersabee.

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At last all the water in the bottle was spent, and she left the boy under one of the trees there,

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while she went and sat down opposite where he was, at a bow-shot’s distance; I cannot bear to see my child die, she said. And there, sitting opposite him, she wept aloud.

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But God had listened to the child’s crying, and now his angel called to Agar out of heaven. Agar, he said, what ails thee? Do not be afraid, God has listened to the crying of thy child, where he lies yonder.

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Up, and take thy child with thee, hold him fast by the hand; I will make him the founder of a great nation yet.

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With that, God gave clear sight to her eyes, and she saw a well that had water in it; to this she went, and filled her bottle, and gave the boy drink.

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Thenceforward, God was with him; he grew up, and made his dwelling there in the wilderness, and became a great archer.

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It was in the desert of Pharan that he dwelt, and the wife his mother chose for him was an Egyptian.

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It was at this same time that Abimelech, with Phicol the commander of his army, said to Abraham, God goes with thee in all thou doest;

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swear to me, then, in the name of God, that thou wilt do no injury to me, to those who follow after me, or to my race; that thou wilt repay the kindness I have shewn thee by like kindness shewn to me, and to this land where thou hast dwelt as a stranger.

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That oath, Abraham said, I will take;

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but meanwhile, he had a complaint to bring against Abimelech over a well where he used to draw water, that Abimelech’s servants had seized by violence.

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I have no knowledge, said Abimelech, who has done it; thou hast never told me of it, and I never heard of it till to-day.

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So Abraham brought sheep and oxen, and gave them to Abimelech, and they made a treaty there between them.

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There were seven ewe-lambs that Abraham set apart from the rest of the flock;

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and when Abimelech asked what was the meaning of the seven lambs he had set apart,

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he answered, Thy acceptance of these seven lambs shall be my witness, that it was I who dug this well.

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That is why the place was called Bersabee, the well of the oath, because the two men swore friendship there.

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Thus they made their treaty over the Well of the Oath,

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and then Abimelech rose, and went back with Phicol, the commander of his army, to the country of the Philistines. At Bersabee, Abraham made a plantation, and invoked there the name of the Lord God eternal.

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And for a long time he dwelt on alien soil, in the country of the Philistines.