One Year Bible.

Abraham and Keturah

¹Now Abraham had taken another wife, named Keturah, ²and she bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.

³Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were the Asshurites, the Letushites, and the Leummites.

⁴The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah.

All these were descendants of Keturah.

⁵Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac. ⁶But while he was still alive, Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east.

The Death of Abraham

⁷Abraham lived a total of 175 years. ⁸And at a ripe old age he breathed his last and died, old and contented, and was gathered to his people.

⁹His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite. ¹⁰This was the field that Abraham had bought from the Hittites. Abraham was buried there with his wife Sarah.

¹¹After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac, who lived near Beer-lahai-roi.

The Descendants of Ishmael

¹²This is the account of Abraham’s son Ishmael, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maidservant, bore to Abraham. ¹³These are the names of the sons of Ishmael in the order of their birth: Nebaioth the firstborn of Ishmael, then Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, ¹⁴Mishma, Dumah, Massa, ¹⁵Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah.

¹⁶These were the sons of Ishmael, and these were their names by their villages and encampments — twelve princes of their tribes. ¹⁷Ishmael lived a total of 137 years. Then he breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people.

¹⁸Ishmael’s descendants settled from Havilah to Shur, which is near the border of Egypt as you go toward Asshur. And they lived in hostility toward all their brothers.

Jacob and Esau

¹⁹This is the account of Abraham’s son Isaac. Abraham became the father of Isaac, ²⁰and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan-aram and the sister of Laban the Aramean.

²¹Later, Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD heard his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived.

²²But the children inside her struggled with each other, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So Rebekah went to inquire of the LORD, ²³and He declared to her:

“Two nations are in your womb,

and two peoples from within you will be separated;

one people will be stronger than the other,

and the older will serve the younger.”

²⁴When her time came to give birth, there were indeed twins in her womb. ²⁵The first one came out red, covered with hair like a fur coat; so they named him Esau. ²⁶After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. And Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.

²⁷When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home. ²⁸Because Isaac had a taste for wild game, he loved Esau; but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Esau Sells His Birthright

²⁹One day, while Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the field and was famished. ³⁰He said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am famished.” (That is why he was also called Edom.)

³¹“First sell me your birthright,” Jacob replied.

³²“Look,” said Esau, “I am about to die, so what good is a birthright to me?”

³³“Swear to me first,” Jacob said.

So Esau swore to Jacob and sold him the birthright. ³⁴Then Jacob gave some bread and lentil stew to Esau, who ate and drank and then got up and went away. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

God’s Promise to Isaac

¹Now there was another famine in the land, subsequent to the one that had occurred in Abraham’s time. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines at Gerar.

²The LORD appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Settle in the land where I tell you. ³Stay in this land as a foreigner, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. ⁴I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, ⁵because Abraham listened to My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”

Isaac Deceives Abimelech

⁶So Isaac settled in Gerar. ⁷But when the men of that place asked about his wife, he said, “She is my sister.” For he was afraid to say, “She is my wife,” since he thought to himself, “The men of this place will kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is so beautiful.”

⁸When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from the window and was surprised to see Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. ⁹Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, “So she is really your wife! How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?”

Isaac replied, “Because I thought I might die on account of her.”

¹⁰“What is this you have done to us?” asked Abimelech. “One of the people could easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” ¹¹So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever harms this man or his wife will surely be put to death.”

Isaac’s Prosperity

¹²Now Isaac sowed seed in the land, and that very year he reaped a hundredfold. And the LORD blessed him, ¹³and he became richer and richer, until he was exceedingly wealthy. ¹⁴He owned so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. ¹⁵So the Philistines took dirt and stopped up all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham.

¹⁶Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Depart from us, for you are much too powerful for us.”

¹⁷So Isaac left that place and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. ¹⁸Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died. And he gave these wells the same names his father had given them.

¹⁹Then Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found a well of fresh water there. ²⁰But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they contended with him.

²¹Then they dug another well and quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah.

²²He moved on from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Rehoboth and said, “At last the LORD has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

²³From there Isaac went up to Beersheba, ²⁴and that night the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of My servant Abraham.”

²⁵So Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD, and he pitched his tent there. His servants also dug a well there.

Isaac’s Covenant with Abimelech

²⁶Later, Abimelech came to Isaac from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army.

²⁷“Why have you come to me?” Isaac asked them. “You hated me and sent me away.”

²⁸“We can plainly see that the LORD has been with you,” they replied. “We recommend that there should now be an oath between us and you. Let us make a covenant with you ²⁹that you will not harm us, just as we have not harmed you but have done only good to you, sending you on your way in peace. And now you are blessed by the LORD.”

³⁰So Isaac prepared a feast for them, and they ate and drank. ³¹And they got up early the next morning and swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they left him in peace.

³²On that same day, Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. “We have found water!” they told him. ³³So he called it Shibah, and to this day the name of the city is Beersheba.

Esau’s Wives

³⁴When Esau was forty years old, he took as his wives Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite. ³⁵And they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah.

A Message to Cush

¹Woe to the land of whirring wings,

along the rivers of Cush,

²which sends couriers by sea,

in papyrus vessels on the waters.

Go, swift messengers,

to a people tall and smooth-skinned,

to a people widely feared,

to a powerful nation of strange speech,

whose land is divided by rivers.

³All you people of the world

and dwellers of the earth,

when a banner is raised on the mountains,

you will see it;

when a ram’s horn sounds,

you will hear it.

⁴For this is what the LORD has told me:

“I will quietly look on from My dwelling place,

like shimmering heat in the sunshine,

like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

⁵For before the harvest, when the blossom is gone

and the flower becomes a ripening grape,

He will cut off the shoots with a pruning knife

and remove and discard the branches.

⁶They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey,

and to the beasts of the land.

The birds will feed on them in summer,

and all the wild animals in winter.

⁷At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD of Hosts—

from a people tall and smooth-skinned,

from a people widely feared,

from a powerful nation of strange speech,

whose land is divided by rivers—

to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD of Hosts.

Christ’s Perfect Sacrifice

¹For the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, not the realities themselves. It can never, by the same sacrifices offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. ²If it could, would not the offerings have ceased? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt the guilt of their sins.

³Instead, those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, ⁴because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. ⁵Therefore, when Christ came into the world, He said:

“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,

but a body You prepared for Me.

⁶In burnt offerings and sin offerings

You took no delight.

⁷Then I said, ‘Here I am, it is written about Me in the scroll:

I have come to do Your will, O God.’”

⁸In the passage above He says, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not desire, nor did You delight in them” (although they are offered according to the law). ⁹Then He adds, “Here I am, I have come to do Your will.” He takes away the first to establish the second. ¹⁰And by that will, we have been sanctified through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

¹¹Day after day every priest stands to minister and to offer again and again the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. ¹²But when this Priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. ¹³Since that time, He waits for His enemies to be made a footstool for His feet, ¹⁴because by a single offering He has made perfect for all time those who are being sanctified.

¹⁵The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First He says:

¹⁶“This is the covenant I will make with them

after those days, declares the Lord.

I will put My laws in their hearts

and inscribe them on their minds.”

¹⁷Then He adds:

“Their sins and lawless acts

I will remember no more.”

¹⁸And where these have been forgiven, an offering for sin is no longer needed.

A Call to Persevere

¹⁹Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰by the new and living way opened for us through the curtain of His body, ²¹and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²²let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

²³Let us hold resolutely to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. ²⁴And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds. ²⁵Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have made a habit, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

²⁶If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, ²⁷but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries. ²⁸Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹How much more severely do you think one deserves to be punished who has trampled on the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

³⁰For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge His people.” ³¹It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

³²Remember the early days that you were in the light. In those days, you endured a great conflict in the face of suffering. ³³Sometimes you were publicly exposed to ridicule and persecution; at other times you were partners with those who were so treated. ³⁴You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, knowing that you yourselves had a better and permanent possession.

³⁵So do not throw away your confidence; it holds a great reward. ³⁶You need to persevere, so that after you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised. ³⁷For,

“In just a little while,

He who is coming will come and will not delay.

³⁸But My righteous one will live by faith;

and if he shrinks back,

I will take no pleasure in him.”

³⁹But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.