A modern English translation drawn directly from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. Translated word-for-word where possible, by a committee with scholarly oversight.
Uses the same source texts as the ESV, NASB, and most academic Bibles, including the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the Nestle-Aland critical edition.
Genesis 21
Chapter summary coming soon.
Verse 1. Now the LORD attended to Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what He had promised.
Verse 2. So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised.
Verse 3. And Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore to him.
Verse 4. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him.
Verse 5. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
Verse 6. Then Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears of this will laugh with me.”
Verse 7. She added, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
Verse 8. So the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.
Verse 9. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking her son,
Verse 10. and she said to Abraham, “Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac!”
Verse 11. Now this matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son Ishmael.
Verse 12. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to everything that Sarah tells you, for through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.
Verse 13. But I will also make a nation of the slave woman’s son, because he is your offspring.”
Verse 14. Early in the morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a skin of water, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her away with the boy. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.
Verse 15. When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes.
Verse 16. Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept.
Verse 17. Then God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, “What is wrong, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he lies.
Verse 18. Get up, lift up the boy, and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
Verse 19. Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
Verse 20. And God was with the boy, and he grew up and settled in the wilderness and became a great archer.
Verse 21. And while he was dwelling in the Wilderness of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
Verse 22. At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do.
Verse 23. Now, therefore, swear to me here before God that you will not deal falsely with me or my children or descendants. Show to me and to the country in which you reside the same kindness that I have shown to you.”
Verse 24. And Abraham replied, “I swear it.”
Verse 25. But when Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well that Abimelech’s servants had seized,
Verse 26. Abimelech replied, “I do not know who has done this. You did not tell me, so I have not heard about it until today.”
Verse 27. So Abraham brought sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant.
Verse 28. Abraham separated seven ewe lambs from the flock,
Verse 29. and Abimelech asked him, “Why have you set apart these seven ewe lambs?”
Verse 30. He replied, “You are to accept the seven ewe lambs from my hand as my witness that I dug this well.”
Verse 31. So that place was called Beersheba, because it was there that the two of them swore an oath.
Verse 32. After they had made the covenant at Beersheba, Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army got up and returned to the land of the Philistines.
Verse 33. And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called upon the name of the LORD, the Eternal God.
Verse 34. And Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines for a long time.