Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
Genesis 12
Abram’s Call
The LORD said to Abram, “Leave your land, your relatives, and your father's household. Go to the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation and bless you. I will make your name great. Be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and curse whoever treats you with contempt. Through you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Abram went as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five when he left Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had gathered, and the people they had acquired in Haran. They set out for Canaan and arrived there.
Abram traveled through the land as far as Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. The Canaanites were living in the land at that time. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” Abram built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
From there he moved into the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the LORD's name. Abram moved on, traveling in stages toward the Negev.
Abram and Sarai in Egypt
A famine struck the land. Because it was severe, Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a time.
As he approached Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know you are a beautiful woman. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ They will kill me and let you live. Please say you are my sister, so that things will go well for me because of you, and my life will be spared on your account.”
When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. Pharaoh's officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into Pharaoh's household. Pharaoh treated Abram well because of her. Abram received sheep and goats, cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female slaves, and camels.
But the LORD struck Pharaoh and his household with severe afflictions because of Sarai, Abram's wife.
Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he asked. “Why did you not tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her as my wife? Here is your wife. Take her and go!”
Pharaoh gave his men orders about Abram, and they sent him away with his wife and everything he had.