The Living Bible (8 page)

Genesis
19

That evening the two angels came to the entrance of the city of Sodom, and Lot was sitting there as they arrived. When he saw them he stood up to meet them, and welcomed them.

    
²
 “Sirs,” he said, “come to my home as my guests for the night; you can get up as early as you like and be on your way again.”

    
“Oh, no thanks,” they said, “we’ll just stretch out here along the street.”

    
³
 But he was very urgent, until at last they went home with him, and he set a great feast before them, complete with freshly baked unleavened bread. After the meal,
⁴
 as they were preparing to retire for the night, the men of the city—yes, Sodomites, young and old from all over the city—surrounded the house
⁵
 and shouted to Lot, “Bring out those men to us so we can rape them.”

    
⁶
 Lot stepped outside to talk to them, shutting the door behind him.
⁷
 “Please, fellows,” he begged, “don’t do such a wicked thing.
⁸
 Look—I have two virgin daughters, and I’ll surrender them to you to do with as you wish. But leave these men alone, for they are under my protection.”

    
⁹
 “Stand back,” they yelled. “Who do you think you are? We let this fellow settle among us and now he tries to tell us what to do! We’ll deal with you far worse than with those other men.” And they lunged at Lot and began breaking down the door.

    
¹⁰
 But the two men reached out and pulled Lot in and bolted the door
¹¹
 and temporarily blinded the men of Sodom so that they couldn’t find the door.

    
¹²
 “What relatives do you have here in the city?” the men asked. “Get them out of this place—sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone else.
¹³
 For we will destroy the city completely. The stench of the place has reached to heaven and God has sent us to destroy it.”

    
¹⁴
 So Lot rushed out to tell his daughters’ fiancés, “Quick, get out of the city, for the Lord is going to destroy it.” But the young men looked at him as though he had lost his senses.

    
¹⁵
 At dawn the next morning the angels became urgent. “Hurry,” they said to Lot, “take your wife and your two daughters who are here and get out while you can, or you will be caught in the destruction of the city.”

    
¹⁶
 When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety, outside the city, for the Lord was merciful.

    
¹⁷
 “Flee for your lives,” the angels told him.
“And don’t look back.
Escape to the mountains. Don’t stay down here on the plain or you will die.”

    
^18-20
 “Oh no, sirs, please,” Lot begged, “since you’ve been so kind to me and saved my life, and you’ve granted me such mercy, let me flee to that little village over there instead of into the mountains, for I fear disaster in the mountains. See, the village is close by and it is just a small one. Please, please, let me go there instead. Don’t you see how small it is? And my life will be saved.”

    
²¹
 “All right,” the angel said, “I accept your proposition and won’t destroy that little city.
²²
 But hurry! For I can do nothing until you are there.” (From that time on that village was named Zoar, meaning “Little City.”)

    
²³
 The sun was rising as Lot reached the village.
²⁴
 Then the Lord rained down fire and flaming tar from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah,
²⁵
 and utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, eliminating all life—people, plants, and animals alike.
²⁶
 But Lot’s wife looked back as she was following along behind him and became a pillar of salt.

    
²⁷
 That morning Abraham was up early and hurried out to the place where he had stood before the Lord.
²⁸
 He looked out across the plain to Sodom and Gomorrah and saw columns of smoke and fumes, as from a furnace, rising from the cities there.
²⁹
 So God heeded Abraham’s plea and kept Lot safe, removing him from the maelstrom of death that engulfed the cities.

    
³⁰
 Afterwards Lot left Zoar, fearful of the people there, and went to live in a cave in the mountains with his two daughters.
³¹
 One day the older girl said to her sister, “There isn’t a man anywhere in this entire area that our father would let us marry. And our father will soon be too old for having children.
³²
 Come, let’s fill him with wine and then we will sleep with him, so that our clan will not come to an end.”
³³
 So they got him drunk that night, and the older girl went in and had sexual intercourse with her father; but he was unaware of her lying down or getting up again.

    
³⁴
 The next morning she said to her younger sister, “I slept with my father last night. Let’s fill him with wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him, so that our family line will continue.”
³⁵
 So they got him drunk again that night, and the younger girl went in and lay with him, and, as before, he didn’t know that anyone was there.
³⁶
 And so it was that both girls became pregnant from their father.
³⁷
 The older girl’s baby was named Moab; he became the ancestor of the nation of the Moabites.
³⁸
 The name of the younger girl’s baby was Benammi; he became the ancestor of the nation of the Ammonites.

Genesis
20

Now Abraham moved south to the Negeb and settled between Kadesh and Shur. One day, when visiting the city of Gerar,
²
 he declared that Sarah was his sister! Then King Abimelech sent for her, and had her brought to him at his palace.

    
³
 But that night God came to him in a dream and told him, “You are a dead man, for that woman you took is married.”

    
⁴
 But Abimelech hadn’t slept with her yet, so he said, “Lord, will you slay an innocent man?
⁵
 He told me, ‘She is my sister,’ and she herself said, ‘Yes, he is my brother.’ I hadn’t the slightest intention of doing anything wrong.”

    
⁶
 “Yes, I know,” the Lord replied. “That is why I held you back from sinning against me; that is why I didn’t let you touch her.
⁷
 Now restore her to her husband, and he will pray for you (for he is a prophet) and you shall live. But if you don’t return her to him, you are doomed to death along with all your household.”

    
⁸
 The king was up early the next morning, and hastily called a meeting of all the palace personnel and told them what had happened. And great fear swept through the crowd.

    
^9-10
 Then the king called for Abraham. “What is this you’ve done to us?” he demanded. “What have I done that deserves treatment like this, to make me and my kingdom guilty of this great sin? Who would suspect that you would do a thing like this to me? Whatever made you think of this vile deed?”

    
^11-12
 “Well,” Abraham said, “I figured this to be a godless place. ‘They will want my wife and will kill me to get her,’ I thought. And besides, she
is
my sister—or at least a half sister (we both have the same father)—and I married her.
¹³
 And when God sent me traveling far from my childhood home, I told her, ‘Have the kindness to mention, wherever we come, that you are my sister.’”

    
¹⁴
 Then King Abimelech took sheep and oxen and servants—both men and women—and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him.

    
¹⁵
 “Look my kingdom over, and choose the place where you want to live,” the king told him.
¹⁶
 Then he turned to Sarah. “Look,” he said, “I am giving your ‘brother’ a thousand silver pieces as damages for what I did, to compensate for any embarrassment and to settle any claim against me regarding this matter. Now justice has been done.”

    
¹⁷
 Then Abraham prayed, asking God to cure the king and queen and the other women of the household, so that they could have children;
¹⁸
 for God had stricken all the women with barrenness to punish Abimelech for taking Abraham’s wife.

Genesis
21

Then God did as he had promised, and Sarah became pregnant and gave Abraham a baby son in his old age, at the time God had said;
³
 and Abraham named him Isaac (meaning “Laughter!”).
^4-5
 Eight days after he was born, Abraham circumcised him, as God required. (Abraham was 100 years old at that time.)

    
⁶
 And Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter! All who hear about this shall rejoice with me.
⁷
 For who would have dreamed that I would ever have a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a child in his old age!”

    
⁸
 Time went by and the child grew and was weaned; and Abraham gave a party to celebrate the happy occasion.
⁹
 But when Sarah noticed Ishmael—the son of Abraham and the Egyptian girl Hagar—teasing
*
Isaac,
¹⁰
 she turned upon Abraham and demanded, “Get rid of that slave girl and her son. He is not going to share your property with my son. I won’t have it.”

    
¹¹
 This upset Abraham very much, for after all, Ishmael too was his son.

    
¹²
 But God told Abraham, “Don’t be upset over the boy or your slave-girl wife; do as Sarah says, for Isaac is the son through whom my promise will be fulfilled.
¹³
 And I will make a nation of the descendants of the slave girl’s son, too, because he also is yours.”

    
¹⁴
 So Abraham got up early the next morning, prepared food for the journey, and strapped a canteen of water to Hagar’s shoulders and sent her away with their son. She walked out into the wilderness of Beersheba, wandering aimlessly.

    
¹⁵
 When the water was gone she left the youth in the shade of a bush
¹⁶
 and went off and sat down a hundred yards or so away. “I don’t want to watch him die,” she said, and burst into tears, sobbing wildly.

    
¹⁷
 Then God heard the boy crying, and the Angel of God called to Hagar from the sky, “Hagar, what’s wrong? Don’t be afraid! For God has heard the lad’s cries as he is lying there.
¹⁸
 Go and get him and comfort him, for I will make a great nation from his descendants.”

    
¹⁹
 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well; so she refilled the canteen and gave the lad a drink.
^20-21
 And God blessed the boy and he grew up in the wilderness of Paran, and became an expert archer. And his mother arranged a marriage for him with a girl from Egypt.

    
²²
 About this time King Abimelech and Phicol, commander of his troops, came to Abraham and said to him, “It is evident that God helps you in everything you do;
²³
 swear to me by God’s name that you won’t defraud me or my son or my grandson, but that you will be on friendly terms with my country, as I have been toward you.”

    
²⁴
 Abraham replied, “All right, I swear to it!”
²⁵
 Then Abraham complained to the king about a well the king’s servants had taken violently away from Abraham’s servants.

    
²⁶
 “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” the king exclaimed, “and I have no idea who is responsible. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

    
²⁷
 Then Abraham gave sheep and oxen to the king, as sacrifices to seal their pact.

    
^28-29
 But when he took seven ewe lambs and set them off by themselves, the king inquired, “Why are you doing that?”

    
³⁰
 And Abraham replied, “They are my gift to you as a public confirmation that this well is mine.”

    
³¹
 So from that time on the well was called Beer-sheba (“Well of the Oath”), because that was the place where they made their covenant.
³²
 Then King Abimelech and Phicol, commander of his army, returned home again.
³³
 And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree beside the well and prayed there to the Lord, calling upon the Eternal God.
³⁴
 And Abraham lived in the Philistine country for a long time.