One Year Pray for America Bible - Flipbook - Page 52
January 11
27 As the boys grew up, Esau became
a skillful hunter. He was an outdoorsman, but Jacob had a quiet temperament, preferring to stay at home.
28 Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed
eating the wild game Esau brought
home, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
29 One day when Jacob was cooking
some stew, Esau arrived home from
the wilderness exhausted and hungry. 30 Esau said to Jacob, “I’m starved!
Give me some of that red stew!” (This
is how Esau got his other name, Edom,
which means “red.”)
31 “All right,” Jacob replied, “but
trade me your rights as the firstborn
son.”
32 “Look, I’m dying of starvation!”
said Esau. “What good is my birthright
to me now?”
33 But Jacob said, “First you must
swear that your birthright is mine.”
So Esau swore an oath, thereby selling all his rights as the firstborn to his
brother, Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread
and lentil stew. Esau ate the meal,
then got up and left. He showed contempt for his rights as the firstborn.
26:1 A
severe famine now struck the
land, as had happened before in Abra
ham’s time. So Isaac moved to Gerar,
where Abimelech, king of the Philis
tines, lived.
2 The Lord appeared to
Isaac and
said, “Do not go down to Egypt, but do
as I tell you. 3 Live here as a foreigner
in this land, and I will be with you
and bless you. I hereby confirm that
I will give all these lands to you and
your descendants,* just as I solemnly
promised Abraham, your father. 4 I will
cause your descendants to become as
numerous as the stars of the sky, and
I will give them all these lands. And
through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed. 5 I will
do this because Abraham listened to
me and obeyed all my requirements,
commands, decrees, and instructions.”
6 So Isaac stayed in Gerar.
7 When the men who lived there
asked Isaac about his wife, Rebekah,
42
he said, “She is my sister.” He was
afraid to say, “She is my wife.” He
thought, “They will kill me to get her,
because she is so beautiful.” 8 But
some time later, Abimelech, king of
the Philistines, looked out his window
and saw Isaac caressing Rebekah.
9 Immediately, Abimel ech called
for Isaac and exclaimed, “She is obviously your wife! Why did you say, ‘She
is my sister’?”
“Because I was afraid someone
would kill me to get her from me,”
Isaac replied.
10 “How could you do this to us?”
Abim
e
lech exclaimed. “One of my
people might easily have taken your
wife and slept with her, and you would
have made us guilty of great sin.”
11 Then Abim
elech issued a public
proclamation: “Anyone who touches
this man or his wife will be put to
death!”
12 When Isaac planted his crops that
year, he harvested a hundred times
more grain than he planted, for the
Lord blessed him. 13 He became a very
rich man, and his wealth continued to
grow. 14 He acquired so many flocks
of sheep and goats, herds of cattle,
and servants that the Philistines became jealous of him. 15 So the Philis
tines filled up all of Isaac’s wells with
dirt. These were the wells that had
been dug by the servants of his father,
Abraham.
16 Finally, Abimelech ordered Isaac
to leave the country. “Go somewhere
else,” he said, “for you have become
too powerful for us.”
25:18 The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.
25:25 Esau sounds like a Hebrew term that means
“hair.”
25:26 Jacob sounds like the Hebrew words
for “heel” and “deceiver.” 26:3 Hebrew seed; also
in 26:4, 24.
MATTHEW 8:1834
When Jesus saw the crowd around
him, he instructed his disciples to
cross to the other side of the lake.
19 Then one of the teachers of religious law said to him, “Teacher, I will
follow you wherever you go.”
20 But
Jesus replied, “Foxes have
dens to live in, and birds have nests,
