Genesis 21

Modern English Version

The Birth of Isaac

21 The Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken. ² For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time that God had spoken to him. ³ Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. ⁴ Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. ⁵ Now Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

⁶ And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh. All who hear will laugh with me.” ⁷ Also she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

Hagar and Ishmael Depart

⁸ So the child grew and was weaned. Then Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. ⁹ Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. ¹⁰ Therefore she said to Abraham, “Throw out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son, Isaac.”

¹¹ This matter was very displeasing in Abraham’s sight because of his son. ¹² But God said to Abraham, “Do not be upset concerning the boy and your slave wife. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to what she says, for in Isaac your descendants will be called. ¹³ Yet I will also make a nation of the son of the slave woman, because he is your offspring.”

¹⁴ So Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and sent her away with the child. So she departed and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.

¹⁵ When the water in the skin was gone, she placed the child under one of the shrubs. ¹⁶ Then she went and sat down across from him at a distance of about a bowshot, for she said to herself, “Let me not see the death of the child.” She sat across from him, and lifted up her voice and wept.

¹⁷ And God heard the boy’s voice. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. ¹⁸ Arise, pick up the boy and hold him in your hands, for I will make him a great nation.”

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

²⁰ God was with the boy; and he grew and lived in the wilderness and became an archer. ²¹ He lived in the Wilderness of Paran, and his mother found a wife for him out of the land of Egypt.

The Treaty With Abimelek

²² Now it came to pass at that time that Abimelek and Phicol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham, saying, “God is with you in all that you do. ²³ Now therefore, swear to me by God that you will not deal deceitfully with me, or with my children, or with my descendants. Instead, according to the kindness that I have shown to you, you will show to me and to the land where you have lived.”

²⁴ Abraham said, “I will swear.”

²⁵ Then Abraham complained to Abimelek about a well of water that Abimelek’s servants had violently seized. ²⁶ And Abimelek said, “I do not know who has done this. You did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today.”

²⁷ So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelek, and the two of them made a covenant. ²⁸ Then Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. ²⁹ And Abimelek said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set by themselves?”

³⁰ And he said, “You shall take these seven ewe lambs from my hand so that they may be a witness that I have dug this well.”

³¹ Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because the two of them swore an oath there.

³² Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelek rose with Phicol, the commander of his army, and they returned to the land of the Philistines. ³³ Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God. ³⁴ Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines many days.