Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
The One Year Bible TLB (8 page)
January 9Now Abraham moved south to the Negeb and settled between Kadesh and Shur. One day, when visiting the city of Gerar,
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he declared that Sarah was his sister! Then King Abimelech sent for her, and had her brought to him at his palace.
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But that night God came to him in a dream and told him, “You are a dead man, for that woman you took is married.”
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But Abimelech hadn’t slept with her yet, so he said, “Lord, will you slay an innocent man?
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He told me, ‘She is my sister,’ and she herself said, ‘Yes, he is my brother.’ I hadn’t the slightest intention of doing anything wrong.”
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“Yes, I know,” the Lord replied. “That is why I held you back from sinning against me; that is why I didn’t let you touch her.
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Now restore her to her husband, and he will pray for you (for he is a prophet) and you shall live. But if you don’t return her to him, you are doomed to death along with all your household.”
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The king was up early the next morning, and hastily called a meeting of all the palace personnel and told them what had happened. And great fear swept through the crowd.
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Then the king called for Abraham. “What is this you’ve done to us?” he demanded. “What have I done that deserves treatment like this, to make me and my kingdom guilty of this great sin? Who would suspect that you would do a thing like this to me? Whatever made you think of this vile deed?”
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“Well,” Abraham said, “I figured this to be a godless place. ‘They will want my wife and will kill me to get her,’ I thought. And besides, she
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my sister—or at least a half sister (we both have the same father)—and I married her.
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And when God sent me traveling far from my childhood home, I told her, ‘Have the kindness to mention, wherever we come, that you are my sister.’”
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Then King Abimelech took sheep and oxen and servants—both men and women—and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him.
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“Look my kingdom over, and choose the place where you want to live,” the king told him.
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Then he turned to Sarah. “Look,” he said, “I am giving your ‘brother’ a thousand silver pieces as damages for what I did, to compensate for any embarrassment and to settle any claim against me regarding this matter. Now justice has been done.”
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Then Abraham prayed, asking God to cure the king and queen and the other women of the household, so that they could have children;
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for God had stricken all the women with barrenness to punish Abimelech for taking Abraham’s wife.
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Then God did as he had promised, and Sarah became pregnant and gave Abraham a baby son in his old age, at the time God had said;
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and Abraham named him Isaac (meaning “Laughter!”).
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Eight days after he was born, Abraham circumcised him, as God required. (Abraham was 100 years old at that time.)
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And Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter! All who hear about this shall rejoice with me.
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For who would have dreamed that I would ever have a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a child in his old age!”
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Time went by and the child grew and was weaned; and Abraham gave a party to celebrate the happy occasion.
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But when Sarah noticed Ishmael—the son of Abraham and the Egyptian girl Hagar—teasing
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Isaac,
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she turned upon Abraham and demanded, “Get rid of that slave girl and her son. He is not going to share your property with my son. I won’t have it.”
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This upset Abraham very much, for after all, Ishmael too was his son.
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But God told Abraham, “Don’t be upset over the boy or your slave-girl wife; do as Sarah says, for Isaac is the son through whom my promise will be fulfilled.
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And I will make a nation of the descendants of the slave girl’s son, too, because he also is yours.”
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So Abraham got up early the next morning, prepared food for the journey, and strapped a canteen of water to Hagar’s shoulders and sent her away with their son. She walked out into the wilderness of Beersheba, wandering aimlessly.
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When the water was gone she left the youth in the shade of a bush
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and went off and sat down a hundred yards or so away. “I don’t want to watch him die,” she said, and burst into tears, sobbing wildly.
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Then God heard the boy crying, and the Angel of God called to Hagar from the sky, “Hagar, what’s wrong? Don’t be afraid! For God has heard the lad’s cries as he is lying there.
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Go and get him and comfort him, for I will make a great nation from his descendants.”
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Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well; so she refilled the canteen and gave the lad a drink.
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And God blessed the boy and he grew up in the wilderness of Paran, and became an expert archer. And his mother arranged a marriage for him with a girl from Egypt.
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About this time King Abimelech and Phicol, commander of his troops, came to Abraham and said to him, “It is evident that God helps you in everything you do;
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swear to me by God’s name that you won’t defraud me or my son or my grandson, but that you will be on friendly terms with my country, as I have been toward you.”
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Abraham replied, “All right, I swear to it!”
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Then Abraham complained to the king about a well the king’s servants had taken violently away from Abraham’s servants.
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“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” the king exclaimed, “and I have no idea who is responsible. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
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Then Abraham gave sheep and oxen to the king, as sacrifices to seal their pact.
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But when he took seven ewe lambs and set them off by themselves, the king inquired, “Why are you doing that?”
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And Abraham replied, “They are my gift to you as a public confirmation that this well is mine.”
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So from that time on the well was called Beer-sheba (“Well of the Oath”), because that was the place where they made their covenant.
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Then King Abimelech and Phicol, commander of his army, returned home again.
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And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree beside the well and prayed there to the Lord, calling upon the Eternal God.
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And Abraham lived in the Philistine country for a long time.
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Later on, God tested Abraham’s faith and obedience.
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“Abraham!” God called.
“Yes, Lord?” he replied.
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“Take with you your only son—yes, Isaac whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I’ll point out to you!”
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The next morning Abraham got up early, chopped wood for a fire upon the altar, saddled his donkey, and took with him his son Isaac and two young men who were his servants, and started off to the place where God had told him to go.
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On the third day of the journey Abraham saw the place in the distance.
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“Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told the young men, “and the lad and I will travel yonder and worship, and then come right back.”
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Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering upon Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the knife and the flint for striking a fire. So the two of them went on together.
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“Father,” Isaac asked, “we have the wood and the flint to make the fire, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”
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“God will see to it, my son,” Abraham replied. And they went on.
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When they arrived at the place where God had told Abraham to go, he built an altar and placed the wood in order, ready for the fire, and then tied Isaac and laid him on the altar over the wood.
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And Abraham took the knife and lifted it up to plunge it into his son, to slay him.
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At that moment the Angel of God shouted to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Yes, Lord!” he answered.
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“Lay down the knife; don’t hurt the lad in any way,” the Angel said, “for I know that God is first in your life—you have not withheld even your beloved son from me.”
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Then Abraham noticed a ram caught by its horns in a bush. So he took the ram and sacrificed it, instead of his son, as a burnt offering on the altar.
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Abraham named the place “Jehovah provides”—and it still goes by that name to this day.
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Then the Angel of God called again to Abraham from heaven.
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“I, the Lord, have sworn by myself that because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your beloved son from me,
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I will bless you with incredible blessings and multiply your descendants into countless thousands and millions, like the stars above you in the sky, and like the sands along the seashore. They will conquer their enemies,
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and your offspring
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will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth—all because you have obeyed me.”
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So they returned to his young men and traveled home again to Beer-sheba.
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After this, a message arrived that Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor, had borne him eight sons. Their names were: Uz, the oldest, Buz, the next oldest, Kemuel (father of Aram), Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, Bethuel (father of Rebekah).
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He also had four other children from his concubine, Reumah: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, Maacah.
“Beware of false teachers who come disguised as harmless sheep, but are wolves and will tear you apart.
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You can detect them by the way they act, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit. You need never confuse grapevines with thorn bushes or figs with thistles.
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Different kinds of fruit trees can quickly be identified by examining their fruit.
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A variety that produces delicious fruit never produces an inedible kind. And a tree producing an inedible kind can’t produce what is good.
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So the trees having the inedible fruit are chopped down and thrown on the fire.
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Yes, the way to identify a tree or a person
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is by the kind of fruit produced.
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“Not all who sound religious are really godly people. They may refer to me as ‘Lord,’ but still won’t get to heaven. For the decisive question is whether they obey my Father in heaven.
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At the Judgment
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many will tell me, ‘Lord, Lord, we told others about you and used your name to cast out demons and to do many other great miracles.’
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But I will reply, ‘You have never been mine.
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Go away, for your deeds are evil.’
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“All who listen to my instructions and follow them are wise, like a man who builds his house on solid rock.
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Though the rain comes in torrents, and the floods rise and the storm winds beat against his house, it won’t collapse, for it is built on rock.
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“But those who hear my instructions and ignore them are foolish, like a man who builds his house on sand.
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For when the rains and floods come, and storm winds beat against his house, it will fall with a mighty crash.”
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The crowds were amazed at Jesus’ sermons,
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for he taught as one who had great authority, and not as their Jewish leaders.
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O Lord, I will praise you with all my heart and tell everyone about the marvelous things you do.
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I will be glad, yes, filled with joy because of you. I will sing your praises, O Lord God above all gods.
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My enemies will fall back and perish in your presence;
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you have vindicated me; you have endorsed my work, declaring from your throne that it is good.
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You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked, blotting out their names forever and ever.
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O enemies of mine, you are doomed forever. The Lord will destroy your cities; even the memory of them will disappear.
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But the Lord lives on forever; he sits upon his throne to judge justly the nations of the world.
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All who are oppressed may come to him. He is a refuge for them in their times of trouble.
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All those who know your mercy, Lord, will count on you for help. For you have never yet forsaken those who trust in you.
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Oh, sing out your praises to the God who lives in Jerusalem.
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Tell the world about his unforgettable deeds.
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He who avenges murder has an open ear to those who cry to him for justice. He does not ignore the prayers of men in trouble when they call to him for help.