Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
The One Year Bible TLB (6 page)
January 7But Sarai and Abram had no children. So Sarai took her maid, an Egyptian girl named Hagar,
2-3
and gave her to Abram to be his second wife.
“Since the Lord has given me no children,” Sarai said, “you may sleep with my servant girl, and her children shall be mine.”
And Abram agreed. (This took place ten years after Abram had first arrived in the land of Canaan.)
4
So he slept with Hagar, and she conceived; and when she realized she was pregnant, she became very proud and arrogant toward her mistress Sarai.
5
Then Sarai said to Abram, “It’s all your fault. For now this servant girl of mine despises me, though I myself gave her the privilege of being your wife. May the Lord judge you for doing this to me!”
*
6
“You have my permission to punish the girl as you see fit,” Abram replied. So Sarai beat her and she ran away.
7
The Angel of the Lord found her beside a desert spring along the road to Shur.
8
The Angel:
“Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
Hagar:
“I am running away from my mistress.”
9-12
The Angel:
“Return to your mistress and act as you should, for I will make you into a great nation. Yes, you are pregnant and your baby will be a son, and you are to name him Ishmael (‘God hears’), because God has heard your woes. This son of yours will be a wild one—free and untamed as a wild ass! He will be against everyone, and everyone will feel the same toward him. But he will live near the rest of his kin.”
13
Thereafter
*
Hagar spoke of Jehovah—for it was he who appeared to her—as “the God who looked upon me,” for she thought, “I saw God and lived to tell it.”
14
Later that well was named “The Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.” It lies between Kadesh and Bered.
15
So Hagar gave Abram a son, and Abram named him Ishmael.
16
(Abram was eighty-six years old at this time.)
17:
1
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, God appeared to him and told him, “I am the Almighty; obey me and live as you should.
2-4
I will prepare a contract between us, guaranteeing to make you into a mighty nation. In fact you shall be the father of not only one nation, but a multitude of nations!” Abram fell face downward in the dust as God talked with him.
5
“What’s more,” God told him, “I am changing your name. It is no longer ‘Abram’ (‘Exalted Father’), but ‘Abraham’ (‘Father of Nations’)—for that is what you will be. I have declared it.
6
I will give you millions of descendants who will form many nations! Kings shall be among your descendants!
7-8
And I will continue this agreement between us generation after generation, forever, for it shall be between me and your children as well. It is a contract that I shall be your God and the God of your posterity. And I will give all this land of Canaan to you and them, forever. And I will be your God.
9-10
“Your part of the contract,” God told him, “is to obey its terms. You personally and all your posterity have this continual responsibility: that every male among you shall be circumcised;
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the foreskin of his penis shall be cut off. This will be the proof that you and they accept this covenant.
12
Every male shall be circumcised on the eighth day after birth. This applies to every foreign-born slave as well as to everyone born in your household. This is a permanent part of this contract, and it applies to all your posterity.
13
All must be circumcised. Your bodies will thus be marked as participants in my everlasting covenant.
14
Anyone who refuses these terms shall be cut off from his people; for he has violated my contract.”
15
Then God added, “Regarding Sarai your wife—her name is no longer ‘Sarai’ but ‘Sarah’ (‘Princess’).
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And I will bless her and give you a son from her! Yes, I will bless her richly, and make her the mother of nations! Many kings shall be among your posterity.”
17
Then Abraham threw himself down in worship before the Lord, but inside he was laughing in disbelief!
*
“Me, be a father?” he said in amusement. “Me—100 years old? And Sarah, to have a baby at 90?”
18
And Abraham said to God, “Yes, do bless Ishmael!”
19
“No,” God replied, “that isn’t what I said.
Sarah
shall bear you a son; and you are to name him Isaac (‘Laughter’), and I will sign my covenant with him forever, and with his descendants.
20
As for Ishmael, all right, I will bless him also, just as you have asked me to. I will cause him to multiply and become a great nation. Twelve princes shall be among his posterity.
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But my contract is with Isaac, who will be born to you and Sarah next year at about this time.”
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That ended the conversation and God left.
23
Then, that very day, Abraham took Ishmael his son and every other male—born in his household or bought from outside—and cut off their foreskins, just as God had told him to.
24-27
Abraham was ninety-nine years old at that time, and Ishmael was thirteen. Both were circumcised the same day, along with all the other men and boys of the household, whether born there or bought as slaves.
18:
1
The Lord appeared again to Abraham while he was living in the oak grove at Mamre. This is the way it happened: One hot summer afternoon as he was sitting in the opening of his tent,
2
he suddenly noticed three men coming toward him. He sprang up and ran to meet them and welcomed them.
3-4
“Sirs,” he said, “please don’t go any farther. Stop awhile and rest here in the shade of this tree while I get water to refresh your feet,
5
and a bite to eat to strengthen you. Do stay awhile before continuing your journey.”
“All right,” they said, “do as you have said.”
6
Then Abraham ran back to the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Mix up some pancakes!
*
Use your best flour, and make enough for the three of them!”
7
Then he ran out to the herd and selected a fat calf and told a servant to hurry and butcher it.
8
Soon, taking them cheese and milk and the roast veal, he set it before the men and stood beneath the trees beside them as they ate.
9
“Where is Sarah, your wife?” they asked him.
“In the tent,” Abraham replied.
10
Then the Lord said, “Next year
*
I will give you and Sarah a son!” (Sarah was listening from the tent door behind him.)
11
Now Abraham and Sarah were both very old, and Sarah was long since past the time when she could have a baby.
12
So Sarah laughed silently. “A woman my age have a baby?” she scoffed to herself. “And with a husband as old as mine?”
13
Then God said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh? Why did she say ‘Can an old woman like me have a baby?’
14
Is anything too hard for God? Next year, just as I told you, I will certainly see to it that Sarah has a son.”
15
But Sarah denied it. “I didn’t laugh,” she lied, for she was afraid.
“Take care! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired, for then you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.
2
When you give a gift to a beggar, don’t shout about it as the hypocrites do—blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity! I tell you in all earnestness, they have received all the reward they will ever get.
3
But when you do a kindness to someone, do it secretly—don’t tell your left hand what your right hand is doing.
4
And your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you.
5
“And now about prayer. When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who pretend piety by praying publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. Truly, that is all the reward they will ever get.
6
But when you pray, go away by yourself, all alone, and shut the door behind you and pray to your Father secretly, and your Father, who knows your secrets, will reward you.
7-8
“Don’t recite the same prayer over and over as the heathen do, who think prayers are answered only by repeating them again and again. Remember, your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!
9
“Pray along these lines: ‘Our Father in heaven, we honor your holy name.
10
We ask that your kingdom will come now. May your will be done here on earth, just as it is in heaven.
11
Give us our food again today, as usual,
12
and forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.
13
Don’t bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.
*
Amen.’
14-15
Your heavenly Father will forgive you if you forgive those who sin against you; but if
you
refuse to forgive
them, he
will not forgive
you.
16
“And now about fasting. When you fast, declining your food for a spiritual purpose, don’t do it publicly, as the hypocrites do, who try to look wan and disheveled so people will feel sorry for them. Truly, that is the only reward they will ever get.
17
But when you fast, put on festive clothing,
18
so that no one will suspect you are hungry, except your Father who knows every secret. And he will reward you.
19
“Don’t store up treasures here on earth where they can erode away or may be stolen.
20
Store them in heaven where they will never lose their value and are safe from thieves.
21
If your profits are in heaven, your heart will be there too.
22
“If your eye is pure, there will be sunshine in your soul.
23
But if your eye is clouded with evil thoughts and desires, you are in deep spiritual darkness. And oh, how deep that darkness can be!
24
“You cannot serve two masters: God and money. For you will hate one and love the other, or else the other way around”
.
I am depending on you, O Lord my God, to save me from my persecutors.
2
Don’t let them pounce upon me as a lion would and maul me and drag me away with no one to rescue me.
3
It would be different, Lord, if I were doing evil things—
4
if I were paying back evil for good or unjustly attacking those I dislike.
5
Then it would be right for you to let my enemies destroy me, crush me to the ground, and trample my life in the dust.
6
But Lord! Arise in anger against the anger of my enemies. Awake! Demand justice for me, Lord!
7-8
Gather all peoples before you; sit high above them, judging their sins. But justify me publicly; establish my honor and truth before them all.
9
End all wickedness, O Lord, and bless all who truly worship God;
*
for you, the righteous God, look deep within the hearts of men and examine all their motives and their thoughts.
10
God is my shield; he will defend me. He saves those whose hearts and lives are true and right.
*
11
God is a judge who is perfectly fair, and he is angry with the wicked every day.
12
Unless they repent, he will sharpen his sword and slay them.
He has bent and strung his bow
13
and fitted it with deadly arrows made from shafts of fire.
14
The wicked man conceives an evil plot, labors with its dark details, and brings to birth his treachery and lies;
15
let him fall into his own trap.
16
May the violence he plans for others boomerang upon himself; let him die.
17
Oh, how grateful and thankful I am to the Lord because he is so good. I will sing praise to the name of the Lord who is above all lords.