Genesis 12
1And the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your land and
from your birthplace and from your father's house, to the land that
I will show you.
2And I will make you into a great nation, and I will
bless you, and I will aggrandize your name, and [you shall] be a
blessing.
3And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who
curses you I will curse, and all the families of the earth shall be
blessed in you.’
4And Abram went, as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot
went with him, and Abram was seventy five years old when he left
Haran.
5And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son,
and all their possessions that they had acquired, and the souls they
had acquired in Haran, and they went to go to the land of Canaan,
and they came to the land of Canaan.
6And Abram passed through the land, until the place of
Shechem, until the plain of Moreh, and the Canaanites were then
in the land.
7And the Lord appeared to Abram, and He said, ‘To your
seed I will give this land,’ and there he built an altar to the
Lord, Who had appeared to him.
8And he moved from there to the mountain, east of Beth
el, and he pitched his tent;
Beth el was to the west and Ai was to the east, and there he
built an altar to the Lord, and he called in the name of the Lord.
9And Abram traveled, continually traveling southward.
10And there was a famine in the land, and Abram descended
to Egypt to sojourn there because the famine was severe in the land.
11Now it came to pass when he drew near to come to Egypt,
that he said to Sarai his wife, ‘Behold now I know that you are a
woman of fair appearance.
12And it will come to pass when the Egyptians see you,
that they will say, 'This is his wife,' and they will slay me and
let you live.
13Please say [that] you are my sister, in order that it
go well with me because of you, and that my soul may live because of
you.’
14And it came to pass when Abram came to Egypt, that the
Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very pretty.
15And Pharaoh's princes saw her, and they praised her to
Pharaoh, and the woman was taken to the house of Pharaoh.
16And he benefited Abram for her sake, and he had flocks
and cattle and he donkeys and men servants and maid servants, and
she donkeys and camels.
17And the Lord plagued Pharaoh [with] great plagues as
well as his household, on account of Sarai, Abram's wife.
18And Pharaoh summoned Abram, and he said, ‘What is this
that you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your
wife?
19Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her
to myself for a wife? And now, here is your wife; take [her] and
go.’
20And Pharaoh commanded men on his behalf, and they
escorted him and his wife and all that was his.
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Keeping up with the Patriarchs
Abram at age 75 travelled from Haran with Lot
to the Promised Land, Shechem, and he built an altar to the Lord,
Who had appeared to him and he moved from there to the mountain,
east of Beth el, and he built an altar to the Lord, and he called in
the name of the Lord and traveled, continually traveling southward.
And there was a famine in the land, and Abram descended to Egypt.
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