Genesis 26

¹And there was a famine in the land, aside from the first famine that had been in the days of Abraham, and Isaac went to Abimelech the king of the Philistines, to Gerar.

²And the Lord appeared to him, and said, ‘Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land that I will tell you.

³Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and I will bless you, for to you and to your seed will I give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham, your father.

⁴And I will multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens, and I will give your seed all these lands, and all the nations of the earth will bless themselves by your seed,

⁵Because Abraham hearkened to My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My instructions.’

⁶And Isaac dwelt in Gerar.

⁷And the men of the place asked about his wife, and he said, ‘She is my sister,’ because he was afraid to say, ‘[She is] my wife,’ [because he said,] ‘Lest the men of the place kill me because of Rebecca, for she is of comely appearance.’

⁸And it came to pass, when he had been there for many days, that Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, looked out of the window, and he saw, and behold, Isaac was jesting with Rebecca his wife.

⁹So Abimelech called Isaac, and he said, ‘Behold, she is your wife; so how could you have said, 'She is my sister'?’ And Isaac said to him, ‘Because I said, 'Lest I die because of her. '‘

¹⁰And Abimelech said, ‘What have you done to us? The most prominent of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.’

¹¹And Abimelech commanded all the people, saying, ‘Whoever touches this man or his wife shall be put to death.’

¹²And Isaac sowed in that land, and he found in that year a hundred fold, and the Lord blessed him.

¹³And the man became great, and he grew constantly greater until he had grown very great.

¹⁴And he had possessions of sheep and possessions of cattle and much production, and the Philistines envied him.

¹⁵And all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father the Philistines stopped them up and filled them with earth.

¹⁶And Abimelech said to Isaac, ‘Go away from us, for you have become much stronger than we.’

¹⁷And Isaac went away from there, and he encamped in the valley of Gerar and dwelt there.

¹⁸And Isaac again dug the wells of water which they had dug in the days of his father, Abraham, and the Philistines had stopped them up after Abraham's death; and he gave them names like the names that his father had given them.

¹⁹And Isaac's servants dug in the valley, and they found there a well of living waters.

²⁰And the shepherds of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's shepherds, saying, ‘The water is ours’; so he named the well Esek, because they had contended with him.

²¹And they dug another well, and they quarreled about it also; so he named it Sitnah.

²²And he moved away from there, and he dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he named it Rehoboth, and he said, ‘For now the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.’

²³And he went up from there to Beer sheba.

²⁴And the Lord appeared to him on that night and said, ‘I am the God of Abraham, your father. Fear not, for I am with you, and I will bless you and multiply your seed for the sake of Abraham, My servant.’

²⁵And he built an altar there, and he called in the name of the Lord, and he pitched his tent there, and Isaac's servants dug a well there.

²⁶And Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and a group of his companions and Pichol, his general.

²⁷And Isaac said to them, ‘Why have you come to me, since you hate me, and you sent me away from you?’

²⁸And they said, ‘We have seen that the Lord was with you; so we said: Let there now be an oath between us, between ourselves and you, and let us form a covenant with you.

²⁹If you do [not] harm us, as we have not touched you, and as we have done with you only good, and we sent you away in peace, [so do] you now, blessed of the Lord.’

³⁰So he made a feast for them, and they ate and drank.

³¹And they arose early in the morning, and they swore one to the other, and Isaac escorted them, and they went away from him in peace.

³²And it came to pass on that day, that Isaac's servants came and told him about the well that they had dug, and they said to him, ‘We have found water.’

³³And he named it Shibah; therefore, the city is named Beer sheba until this very day.

³⁴And Esau was forty years old, and he married Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite.

³⁵And they were a vexation of the spirit to Isaac and to Rebecca.