Genesis 13

⁴⁰So Joshua conquered the whole region—the hill country, the Negev, the foothills, and the slopes, together with all their kings—leaving no survivors. He devoted to destruction everything that breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded.

⁹And Abram journeyed on toward the Negev.

¹⁰Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.

⁷They went toward the fortress of Tyre and all the cities of the Hivites and Canaanites. Finally, they went on to the Negev of Judah, to Beersheba.

³³And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called upon the name of the Lord, the Eternal God.

¹Now Abraham journeyed from there to the region of the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was staying in Gerar,

⁵and divide the land into seven portions. Judah shall remain in their territory in the south, and the house of Joseph shall remain in their territory in the north.

³⁵“The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become rich. He has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, menservants and maidservants, camels and donkeys.

¹Hallelujah! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments.

²His descendants will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.

¹²Now Isaac sowed seed in the land, and that very year he reaped a hundredfold. And the Lord blessed him,

¹³and he became richer and richer, until he was exceedingly wealthy.

²²The blessing of the Lord enriches, and He adds no sorrow to it.

²¹Reconcile now and be at peace with Him; thereby good will come to you.

²²Receive instruction from His mouth, and lay up His words in your heart.

¹⁸But remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to gain wealth, in order to confirm His covenant that He swore to your fathers even to this day.

⁶Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the Oak of Moreh at Shechem. And at that time the Canaanites were in the land.

⁸From there Abram moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built an altar to the Lord, and he called on the name of the Lord.

⁹And Abram journeyed on toward the Negev.

¹²Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

¹⁸Pray in the Spirit at all times, with every kind of prayer and petition. To this end, stay alert with all perseverance in your prayers for all the saints.

¹⁹Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will boldly make known the mystery of the gospel,

⁹Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry out, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and malicious talk,

⁷Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” So Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

⁸From there Abram moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built an altar to the Lord, and he called on the name of the Lord.

²Because He has inclined His ear to me, I will call on Him as long as I live.

⁹For then I will restore pure lips to the peoples, that all may call upon the name of the Lord and serve Him shoulder to shoulder.

²⁰Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and raise livestock.

²⁹They will take their tents and flocks, their tent curtains and all their goods. They will take their camels for themselves. They will shout to them: ‘Terror is on every side!’

²⁷When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home.

⁶Later, Esau took his wives and sons and daughters and all the people of his household, along with his livestock, all his other animals, and all the property he had acquired in Canaan, and he moved to a land far away from his brother Jacob.

⁷For their possessions were too great for them to dwell together; the land where they stayed could not support them because of their livestock.

¹⁷So he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, since I have nowhere to store my crops?’

¹⁸Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and will build bigger ones, and there I will store up all my grain and my goods.

¹⁰He who loves money is never satisfied by money, and he who loves wealth is never satisfied by income. This too is futile.

¹¹When good things increase, so do those who consume them; what then is the profit to the owner, except to behold them with his eyes?

⁹Those who want to be rich, however, fall into temptation and become ensnared by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.

²⁰But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they contended with him.

⁶Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the Oak of Moreh at Shechem. And at that time the Canaanites were in the land.

¹⁶For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every evil practice.

¹What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you?

³⁰Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble upon me by making me a stench to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people of this land. We are few in number; if they unite against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.”

¹²Conduct yourselves with such honor among the Gentiles that, though they slander you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.

⁶Instead, one brother goes to law against another, and this in front of unbelievers!

⁷The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means that you are thoroughly defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

²⁶The next day he came upon two Israelites who were fighting, and he tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’

¹A song of ascents. Of David. Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony!

²⁷This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.

²⁸During his father Terah’s lifetime, Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

³It is honorable for a man to resolve a dispute, but any fool will quarrel.

⁷and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.

¹⁵And Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you. Settle wherever you please.”

⁸Finally, all of you, be like-minded and sympathetic, love as brothers, be tenderhearted and humble.

⁹Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

¹⁰You may settle among us, and the land will be open to you. Live here, move about freely, and acquire your own property.”

¹⁴Pursue peace with everyone, as well as holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.

¹⁸If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone.

⁷The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means that you are thoroughly defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

³the Negev, and the region from the Valley of Jericho (the City of Palms) all the way to Zoar.

³For the Lord will comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; He will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and melodious song.

⁸Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) marched out and arrayed themselves for battle in the Valley of Siddim

⁸And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, where He placed the man He had formed.

⁹Out of the ground the Lord God gave growth to every tree that is pleasing to the eye and good for food. And in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

³Before them a fire devours, and behind them a flame scorches. The land before them is like the Garden of Eden, but behind them, it is like a desert wasteland—surely nothing will escape them.

¹³You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every kind of precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald. Your mountings and settings were crafted in gold, prepared on the day of your creation.

⁹Is not the whole land before you? Now separate yourself from me. If you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left.”

²⁵Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have made a habit, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

¹⁰Do not forsake your friend or your father’s friend, and do not go to your brother’s house in the day of your calamity; better a neighbor nearby than a brother far away.

¹⁷Treat everyone with high regard: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.

⁶³I am a friend to all who fear You, and to those who keep Your precepts.

¹⁴After Lot had departed, the Lord said to Abram, “Now lift up your eyes from the place where you are, and look to the north and south and east and west,

²⁹So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, He remembered Abraham, and He brought Lot out of the catastrophe that destroyed the cities where he had lived.

¹Now the two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them, bowed facedown,

¹²They also carried off Abram’s nephew Lot and his possessions, since Lot was living in Sodom.

³³Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good character.”

²⁵Thus He destroyed these cities and the entire plain, including all the inhabitants of the cities and everything that grew on the ground.

⁷and if He rescued Lot, a righteous man distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless

⁸(for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)—

¹⁰Such punishment is specially reserved for those who indulge the corrupt desires of the flesh and despise authority. Bold and self-willed, they are unafraid to slander glorious beings.

⁷In like manner, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are on display as an example of those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire.

⁶if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, reducing them to ashes as an example of what is coming on the ungodly;

⁷and if He rescued Lot, a righteous man distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless

²⁷Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

⁸For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen because they spoke and acted against the Lord, defying His glorious presence.

⁹The expression on their faces testifies against them, and like Sodom they flaunt their sin; they do not conceal it. Woe to them, for they have brought disaster upon themselves.

²⁴“Can a man hide in secret places where I cannot see him?” declares the Lord. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the Lord.

²⁷Go to the top of Pisgah and look to the west and north and south and east. See the land with your own eyes, for you will not cross this Jordan.

¹⁴Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and east and north and south. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

¹⁸Lift up your eyes and look around. They all gather together; they come to you. As surely as I live,” declares the Lord, “you will wear them all as jewelry and put them on like a bride.

⁴Lift up your eyes and look around: They all gather and come to you; your sons will come from afar, and your daughters will be carried on the arm.

¹⁰And Lot looked out and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan, all the way to Zoar, was well watered like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)

⁷Our God, did You not drive out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham Your friend?

⁷Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” So Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

¹⁸On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—

¹²The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.”

⁵He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised to give possession of the land to Abraham and his descendants, even though he did not yet have a child.

²²Surely those He blesses will inherit the land, but the cursed will be destroyed.

¹⁴Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and east and north and south. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

¹⁰Who can count the dust of Jacob or number even a fourth of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous; let my end be like theirs!”

¹⁷I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies.

¹²But You have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper, and I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea, too numerous to count.’”

¹³Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom You swore by Your very self when You declared, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give your descendants all this land that I have promised, and it shall be their inheritance forever.’”

⁸Your servant is here among the people You have chosen, a people too numerous to count or number.

¹⁵for all the land that you see, I will give to you and your offspring forever.

¹⁷When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev and into the hill country.

¹⁸See what the land is like and whether its people are strong or weak, few or many.

¹³Then an escapee came and reported this to Abram the Hebrew. Now Abram was living near the Oaks of Mamre the Amorite, a brother of Eshcol and Aner, all of whom were bound by treaty to Abram.

¹Then the Lord appeared to Abraham by the Oaks of Mamre in the heat of the day, while he was sitting at the entrance of his tent.

²⁷Jacob returned to his father Isaac at Mamre, near Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed.

²⁰Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. And taking from every kind of clean animal and clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar.

⁷Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” So Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

⁸From there Abram moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built an altar to the Lord, and he called on the name of the Lord.

⁸I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.