A People of Promise

THE STORY OF ABRAHAM AND SARAH

Genesis 12-18

Then God said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.  He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

Some time later,  the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”  But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”  And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”  But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.”  He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”  And he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land.”

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.  And I will make my covenant between me and you and will make you exceedingly numerous.”… God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.  I will bless her and also give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”  Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”  And Abraham said to God, “O that Ishmael might live in your sight!”  God said, “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.”

They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.”  Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him.  Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.  So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I be fruitful?”  The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’  Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.”  But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “Yes, you did laugh.”