One Year Bible.

Abraham, Sarah, and Abimelech

¹Now Abraham journeyed from there to the region of the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was staying in Gerar, ²Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” So Abimelech king of Gerar had Sarah brought to him.

³One night, however, God came to Abimelech in a dream and told him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken, for she is a married woman.”

⁴Now Abimelech had not gone near her, so he replied, “Lord, would You destroy a nation even though it is innocent? ⁵Didn’t Abraham tell me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ I have done this in the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands.”

⁶Then God said to Abimelech in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against Me. That is why I did not let you touch her. ⁷Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet; he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not restore her, be aware that you will surely die — you and all who belong to you.”

⁸Early the next morning Abimelech got up and summoned all his servants; and when he described to them all that had happened, the men were terrified.

⁹Then Abimelech called Abraham and asked, “What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you, that you have brought such tremendous guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done.” ¹⁰Abimelech also asked Abraham, “What prompted you to do such a thing?”

¹¹Abraham replied, “I thought to myself, ‘Surely there is no fear of God in this place. They will kill me on account of my wife.’ ¹²Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father — though not the daughter of my mother — and she became my wife. ¹³So when God had me journey from my father’s house, I said to Sarah, ‘This is how you can show your loyalty to me: Wherever we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”

¹⁴So Abimelech brought sheep and cattle, menservants and maidservants, and he gave them to Abraham and restored his wife Sarah to him. ¹⁵And Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you. Settle wherever you please.” ¹⁶And he said to Sarah, “See, I am giving your brother a thousand pieces of silver. It is your vindication before all who are with you; you are completely cleared.”

¹⁷Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maidservants, so that they could again bear children — ¹⁸for on account of Abraham’s wife Sarah, the LORD had completely closed all the wombs in Abimelech’s household.

The Birth of Isaac

¹Now the LORD attended to Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what He had promised. ²So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised.

³And Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore to him. ⁴When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him. ⁵Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

⁶Then Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears of this will laugh with me.” ⁷She added, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

⁸So the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.

Sarah Turns against Hagar

⁹But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking her son, ¹⁰and 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!”

¹¹Now this matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son Ishmael. ¹²But 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. ¹³But I will also make a nation of the slave woman’s son, because he is your offspring.”

¹⁴Early 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. ¹⁵When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes. ¹⁶Then 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.

¹⁷Then 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. ¹⁸Get up, lift up the boy, and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” ¹⁹Then 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.

²⁰And God was with the boy, and he grew up and settled in the wilderness and became a great archer. ²¹And while he was dwelling in the Wilderness of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

The Covenant at Beersheba

²²At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do. ²³Now, 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.”

²⁴And Abraham replied, “I swear it.”

²⁵But when Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well that Abimelech’s servants had seized, ²⁶Abimelech replied, “I do not know who has done this. You did not tell me, so I have not heard about it until today.”

²⁷So Abraham brought sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. ²⁸Abraham separated seven ewe lambs from the flock, ²⁹and Abimelech asked him, “Why have you set apart these seven ewe lambs?”

³⁰He replied, “You are to accept the seven ewe lambs from my hand as my witness that I dug this well.” ³¹So that place was called Beersheba, because it was there that the two of them swore an oath. ³²After 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.

³³And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called upon the name of the LORD, the Eternal God. ³⁴And Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines for a long time.

Woe to Tyrants

¹Woe to those who enact unjust statutes

and issue oppressive decrees,

²to deprive the poor of fair treatment

and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people,

to make widows their prey

and orphans their plunder.

³What will you do on the day of reckoning

when devastation comes from afar?

To whom will you flee for help?

Where will you leave your wealth?

⁴Nothing will remain but to crouch among the captives

or fall among the slain.

Despite all this, His anger is not turned away;

His hand is still upraised.

Judgment on Assyria

⁵Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger;

the staff in their hands is My wrath.

⁶I will send him against a godless nation;

I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage,

to take spoils and seize plunder,

and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

⁷But this is not his intention;

this is not his plan.

For it is in his heart to destroy

and cut off many nations.

⁸“Are not all my commanders kings?” he says.

⁹“Is not Calno like Carchemish?

Is not Hamath like Arpad?

Is not Samaria like Damascus?

¹⁰As my hand seized the idolatrous kingdoms

whose images surpassed those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

¹¹and as I have done to Samaria and its idols,

will I not also do to Jerusalem and her idols?”

¹²So when the Lord has completed all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the fruit of his arrogant heart and the proud look in his eyes. ¹³For he says:

‘By the strength of my hand I have done this,

and by my wisdom, for I am clever.

I have removed the boundaries of nations

and plundered their treasures;

like a mighty one I subdued their rulers.

¹⁴My hand reached as into a nest

to seize the wealth of the nations.

Like one gathering abandoned eggs,

I gathered all the earth.

No wing fluttered,

no beak opened or chirped.’”

¹⁵Does an axe raise itself above the one who swings it?

Does a saw boast over him who saws with it?

It would be like a rod waving the one who lifts it,

or a staff lifting him who is not wood!

¹⁶Therefore the Lord GOD of Hosts will send a wasting disease

among Assyria’s stout warriors,

and under his pomp will be kindled

a fire like a burning flame.

¹⁷And the Light of Israel will become a fire,

and its Holy One a flame.

In a single day it will burn and devour

Assyria’s thorns and thistles.

¹⁸The splendor of its forests and orchards,

both soul and body,

it will completely destroy,

as a sickness consumes a man.

¹⁹The remaining trees of its forests will be so few

that a child could count them.

A Remnant Shall Return

²⁰On that day the remnant of Israel

and the survivors of the house of Jacob

will no longer depend

on him who struck them,

but they will truly rely on the LORD,

the Holy One of Israel.

²¹A remnant will return — a remnant of Jacob —

to the Mighty God.

²²Though your people, O Israel, be like the sand of the sea,

only a remnant will return.

Destruction has been decreed,

overflowing with righteousness.

²³For the Lord GOD of Hosts will carry out

the destruction decreed upon the whole land.

²⁴Therefore this is what the Lord GOD of Hosts says:

“O My people who dwell in Zion,

do not fear Assyria,

who strikes you with a rod

and lifts his staff against you

as the Egyptians did.

²⁵For in just a little while

My fury against you will subside,

and My anger will turn to their destruction.”

²⁶And the LORD of Hosts will brandish a whip against them,

as when He struck Midian at the rock of Oreb.

He will raise His staff over the sea,

as He did in Egypt.

²⁷On that day the burden will be lifted from your shoulders,

and the yoke from your neck.

The yoke will be broken

because your neck will be too large.

²⁸Assyria has entered Aiath

and passed through Migron,

storing their supplies at Michmash.

²⁹They have crossed at the ford:

“We will spend the night at Geba.”

Ramah trembles;

Gibeah of Saul flees.

³⁰Cry aloud, O Daughter of Gallim!

Listen, O Laishah!

O wretched Anathoth!

³¹Madmenah flees;

the people of Gebim take refuge.

³²Yet today they will halt at Nob,

shaking a fist at the mount of Daughter Zion,

at the hill of Jerusalem.

³³Behold, the Lord GOD of Hosts

will lop off the branches with terrifying power.

The tall trees will be cut down,

the lofty ones will be felled.

³⁴He will clear the forest thickets with an axe,

and Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.

Christ’s Eternal Priesthood

¹The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, ²and who ministers in the sanctuary and true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man. ³And since every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, it was necessary for this One also to have something to offer.

⁴Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are already priests who offer gifts according to the law. ⁵The place where they serve is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”

The New Covenant

⁶Now, however, Jesus has received a much more excellent ministry, just as the covenant He mediates is better and is founded on better promises. ⁷For if that first covenant had been without fault, no place would have been sought for a second. ⁸But God found fault with the people and said:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,

when I will make a new covenant

with the house of Israel

and with the house of Judah.

⁹It will not be like the covenant

I made with their fathers

when I took them by the hand

to lead them out of the land of Egypt,

because they did not abide by My covenant,

and I disregarded them,

declares the Lord.

¹⁰For this is the covenant I will make

with the house of Israel

after those days,

declares the Lord.

I will put My laws in their minds

and inscribe them on their hearts.

And I will be their God,

and they will be My people.

¹¹No longer will each one teach his neighbor or his brother,

saying, ‘Know the Lord,’

because they will all know Me,

from the least of them to the greatest.

¹²For I will forgive their iniquities

and will remember their sins no more.”

¹³By speaking of a new covenant, He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.