And Abram bowed to the ground.

God spoke to him as follows, ‘For my part, this is my covenant with you: you will become the father of many nations. And you are no longer to be called Abram; your name is to be Abraham, for I am making you father of many nations. I shall make you exceedingly fertile. I shall make you into nations, and your issue will be kings. And I shall maintain my covenant between myself and you, and your descendants after you. And to you and to your descendants after you, I shall give the country where you are now immigrants, the entire land of Canaan, to own in perpetuity. And I shall be their God.’

God further said to Abraham, ‘You for your part must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you, generation after generation. This is my covenant which you must keep between myself and you, and your descendants after you: every one of your males must be circumcised. You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that will be the sign of the covenant between myself and you. As soon as he is eight days old, every one of your males, generation after generation, must be circumcised, including slaves born within the household or bought from a foreigner not of your descent. Whether born within the household or bought, they must be circumcised. My covenant must be marked in your flesh as a covenant in perpetuity. The uncircumcised male, whose foreskin has not been circumcised--that person must be cut off from his people: he has broken my covenant.’

Furthermore God said to Abraham, ‘As regards your wife Sarai, you must not call her Sarai, but Sarah. I shall bless her and moreover give you a son by her. I shall bless her and she will become nations: kings of peoples will issue from her.’ Abraham bowed to the ground and he laughed, thinking to himself, ‘Is a child to be born to a man one hundred years old, and will Sarah have a child at the age of ninety?’ Abraham said to God, ‘May Ishmael live in your presence! That will be enough!’ But God replied, ‘Yes, your wife Sarah will bear you a son whom you must name Isaac. And I shall maintain my covenant with him, a covenant in perpetuity, to be his God and the God of his descendants after him. For Ishmael too I grant you your request. I hereby bless him and will make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous. He will be the father of twelve princes, and I shall make him into a great nation. But my covenant I shall maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear you at this time next year.’ When he had finished speaking to Abraham, God went up from him.

Then Abraham took his son Ishmael, all the slaves born in his household or whom he had bought, in short all the males among the people of Abraham’s household, and circumcised their foreskins that same day, as God had said to him. Abraham was ninety-nine years old when his foreskin was circumcised. Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when his foreskin was circumcised. Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised on the very same day, and all the men of his household, those born in the household and those bought from foreigners, were circumcised with him.

21 Yahweh treated Sarah as he had said, and did what he had promised her. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time God had promised. Abraham named the son born to him Isaac, the son to whom Sarah had given birth. Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said:
God has given me cause to laugh!
All who hear about this will laugh with me!
She added:
Whoever would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children!
Yet I have borne a son in his old age!

The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham gave a great banquet on the day Isaac was weaned. Now Sarah watched the son that Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. ‘Drive away that slave-girl and her son,’ she said to Abraham, ‘this slave-girl’s son is not to share the inheritance with my son Isaac.’ This greatly distressed Abraham, because the slave-girl’s child too was his son, but God said to him, ‘Do not distress yourself on account of the boy and your slave-girl. Do whatever Sarah says, for Isaac is the one through whom your name will be carried on. But the slave-girl’s son I shall also make into a great nation, for he too is your child.’ Early the next morning, Abraham took some bread and a skin of water and, giving them to Hagar, put the child on her shoulder and sent her away.

She wandered off into the desert of Beersheba. When the skin of water was finished she abandoned the child under a bush. Then she went and sat down at a distance, about a bowshot away, thinking, ‘I cannot bear to see the child die.’ Sitting at a distance, she began to sob.

God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven. ‘What is wrong, Hagar?’ He asked. ‘Do not be afraid, for God has heard the boy’s cry in his plight. Go and pick the boy up and hold him safe, for I shall make him into a great nation.’ Then God opened Hagar’s eyes and she saw a well, so she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy. He grew up and made his home in the desert, and he became an archer. He made his home in the desert of Paran, and his mother got him a wife from Egypt.

22 It happened some time later that God put Abraham to the test. 'Abraham, Abraham!’ he called. ‘Here I am,’ he replied. God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, your beloved Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, where you are to offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall point out to you.’

Early next morning Abraham saddled his donkey and took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. He chopped wood for the burnt offering and started on his journey to the place which God had indicated to him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. Then Abraham said to his servants, ‘Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I are going over there; we shall worship and then come back for you.’

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, loaded it on Isaac, and carried in his own hands the fire and the knife. Then the two of them set out together. Isaac spoke to his father Abraham. ‘Father?’ he said. ‘Yes, my son,’ he replied. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ Abraham replied, ‘My son, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.’ And the two of them went on together.

When they arrived at the place which God had indicated to him, Abraham built an altar there, and arranged the wood. Then he bound his son and put him on the altar on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to kill his son.

But the angel of Yahweh called to him from heaven. ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ he said. ‘Here I am,’ he replied. ‘Do not harm him, for now I know you fear God. You have not refused me your own beloved son.’ Then looking up, Abraham saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush. Abraham took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Abraham called this place ‘Yahweh provides,' and hence the saying today: ‘On the mountain Yahweh provides.’

The angel of Yahweh called Abraham a second time from heaven. ‘I swear by my own self, Yahweh declares, that because you have done this, because you have not refused me your own beloved son, I will shower blessings on you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will gain possession of the gates of their enemies. All nations on earth will bless themselves by your descendants, because you have obeyed my command.’

Abraham went back to his servants, and together they set out for Beersheba, and Abraham settled in Beersheba.