One Year Bible.

God’s Covenant with Abram

¹After these events, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:

“Do not be afraid, Abram.

I am your shield,

your very great reward.”

²But Abram replied, “O Lord GOD, what can You give me, since I remain childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³Abram continued, “Behold, You have given me no offspring, so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

⁴Then the word of the LORD came to Abram, saying, “This one will not be your heir, but one who comes from your own body will be your heir.” ⁵And the LORD took him outside and said, “Now look to the heavens and count the stars, if you are able.” Then He told him, “So shall your offspring be.”

⁶Abram believed the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

⁷The LORD also told him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”

God Confirms His Promise

⁸But Abram replied, “Lord GOD, how can I know that I will possess it?”

⁹And the LORD said to him, “Bring Me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a turtledove and a young pigeon.”

¹⁰So Abram brought all these to Him, split each of them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. The birds, however, he did not cut in half. ¹¹And the birds of prey descended on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. ¹²As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and suddenly great terror and darkness overwhelmed him.

¹³Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. ¹⁴But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will depart with many possessions. ¹⁵You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. ¹⁶In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

¹⁷When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, behold, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the halves of the carcasses. ¹⁸On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land — from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates — ¹⁹the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, ²⁰Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, ²¹Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

Hagar and Ishmael

¹Now Abram’s wife Sarai had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. ²So Sarai said to Abram, “Look now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family by her.”

And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³So after he had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to Abram to be his wife. ⁴And he slept with Hagar, and she conceived. But when Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.

⁵Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be upon you! I delivered my servant into your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me.”

⁶“Here,” said Abram, “your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she fled from her.

⁷Now the angel of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert — the spring along the road to Shur. ⁸“Hagar, servant of Sarai,” he said, “where have you come from, and where are you going?”

“I am running away from my mistress Sarai,” she replied.

⁹So the angel of the LORD told her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.” ¹⁰Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”

¹¹The angel of the LORD proceeded:

“Behold, you have conceived and will bear a son.

And you shall name him Ishmael,

for the LORD has heard your cry of affliction.

¹²He will be a wild donkey of a man,

and his hand will be against everyone,

and everyone’s hand against him;

he will live in hostility

toward all his brothers.”

¹³So Hagar gave this name to the LORD who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!” ¹⁴Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi. It is located between Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. ¹⁶Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.

The Mountain of the House of the LORD

¹In the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD

will be established as the chief of the mountains;

it will be raised above the hills,

and the peoples will stream to it.

²And many nations will come and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,

to the house of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us His ways,

so that we may walk in His paths.”

For the law will go forth from Zion

and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

³Then He will judge between many peoples

and arbitrate for strong nations far and wide.

Then they will beat their swords into plowshares

and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation,

nor will they train anymore for war.

⁴And each man will sit under his own vine

and under his own fig tree,

with no one to frighten him.

For the mouth of the LORD of Hosts has spoken.

⁵Though all the nations

may walk in the name of their gods,

yet we will walk in the name of the LORD our God

forever and ever.

The Restoration of Zion

⁶“On that day,” declares the LORD,

“I will gather the lame;

I will assemble the outcast,

even those whom I have afflicted.

⁷And I will make the lame into a remnant,

the outcast into a strong nation.

Then the LORD will rule over them in Mount Zion

from that day and forever.

⁸And you, O watchtower of the flock,

O stronghold of the Daughter of Zion —

the former dominion will be restored to you;

sovereignty will come to the Daughter of Jerusalem.”

⁹Why do you now cry aloud?

Is there no king among you?

Has your counselor perished

so that anguish grips you like a woman in labor?

¹⁰Writhe in agony, O Daughter of Zion,

like a woman in labor.

For now you will leave the city

and camp in the open fields.

You will go to Babylon;

there you will be rescued;

there the LORD will redeem you

from the hand of your enemies!

¹¹But now many nations

have assembled against you,

saying, “Let her be defiled,

and let us feast our eyes on Zion.”

¹²But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD

or understand His plan,

for He has gathered them

like sheaves to the threshing floor.

¹³Rise and thresh, O Daughter of Zion,

for I will give you horns of iron

and hooves of bronze

to break to pieces many peoples.

Then you will devote their gain to the LORD,

their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.

A Call to Maturity

¹Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith in God, ²instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. ³And this we will do, if God permits.

⁴It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age — ⁶and then have fallen away — to be restored to repentance, because they themselves are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to open shame.

⁷For land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is tended receives the blessing of God. ⁸But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless, and its curse is imminent. In the end it will be burned.

⁹Even though we speak like this, beloved, we are convinced of better things in your case— things that accompany salvation. ¹⁰For God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown for His name as you have ministered to the saints and continue to do so.

¹¹We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. ¹²Then you will not be sluggish, but will imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

God’s Unchangeable Promise

¹³When God made His promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater to swear by, He swore by Himself, ¹⁴saying, “I will surely bless you and multiply your descendants.” ¹⁵And so Abraham, after waiting patiently, obtained the promise.

¹⁶Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and their oath serves as a confirmation to end all argument. ¹⁷So when God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of the promise, He guaranteed it with an oath. ¹⁸Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.

¹⁹We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, ²⁰where Jesus our forerunner has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.