Inspire Praise Bible: The Bible for Coloring & Creative Journaling - Flipbook - Page 19
gENESIS 16:8
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2 But Abram replied, “O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings
when I don’t even have a son? Since you’ve given me no children, Eliezer of
Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth. 3 You have
given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.”
4 Then the Lord said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for
you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” 5 Then the Lord took
Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if
you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”
6 And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous
because of his faith.
7 Then the Lord told him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of
the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession.”
8 But Abram replied, “O Sovereign Lord, how can I be sure that I will
actually possess it?”
9 The Lord told him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old
female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 So
Abram presented all these to him and killed them. Then he cut each animal
down the middle and laid the halves side by side; he did not, however, cut
the birds in half. 11 Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but
Abram chased them away.
12 As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him. 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “You
can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where
they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. 14 But I will punish the nation
that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth.
15 (As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.) 16 After
four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins
of the Amor ites do not yet warrant their destruction.”
17 After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. 18 So the
Lord made a covenant with Abram that day and said, “I have given this
land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt* to the great
Euphrates River—19 the land now occupied by the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kad
monites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girga
shites, and J ebusites.”
The Birth of Ishmael
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not been able to bear children for him. But
she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. 2 So Sarai said to Abram, “The
Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant.
Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed with Sarai’s proposal. 3 So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her
to Abram as a wife. (This happened ten years after Abram had settled in the
land of Canaan.)
4 So Abram had sexual relations with Hagar, and she became pregnant.
But when Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress,
Sarai, with contempt. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “This is all your fault! I put
my servant into your arms, but now that she’s pregnant she treats me with
contempt. The Lord will show who’s wrong—you or me!”
6 Abram replied, “Look, she is your servant, so deal with her as you see fit.”
Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she finally ran away.
7 The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness, along the road to Shur. 8 The angel said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
16
15:18 Hebrew the river of Egypt, referring either to an eastern branch of the Nile River or to the
Brook of Egypt in the Sinai (see Num 34:5).
NLT Praise.indb 17
2017/07/27 10:29 AM
