THE WORD OF ELOHIM
GENESIS
Chapter 12
Yehovah said to Abram, "Go forth from your native land and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse him that curses you; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you." Abram went forth as Yehovah had commanded him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy five years old when he left Charan.
Abram took his wife Saray and his brother's son Lot, and all the wealth that they had amassed, and the persons that they had acquired in Charan; and they set out for the land of Kenaan. When they arrived in the land of Kenaan, Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shekem, at the terebinth of Moreh. The Kna'aniy were then in the land.
Yehovah appeared to Abram and said, "I will assign this land to your offspring." And he built an altar there to Yehovah who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country east of Bayt el’ and pitched his tent, with Bayt el’ on the west and Ay on the east; and he built there an altar to Yehovah and invoked Yehovah by name. Then Abram journeyed by stages toward the Negeb.
There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Mitzramah to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. As he was about to enter Mitzramah, he said to his wife Saray, "I know what a beautiful woman you are. If the Mitzrayim see you, and think, 'She is his wife,' they will kill me and let you live. Please say that you are my sister that it may go well with me, because of you, and that I may remain alive, thanks to you."
When Abram entered Mitzramah, the Mitzrayim saw how very beautiful the woman was. Paroh's courtiers saw her and praised her to Paroh, and the woman was taken into Paroh's palace. And because of her, it went well with Abram; he acquired sheep, oxen, asses, male and female slaves, she-
But Yehovah afflicted Paroh and his household with mighty plagues on account of Saray, the wife of Abram. Paroh sent for Abram and said, "What is this you have done to me! Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her as my wife? Now, here is your wife; take her and be gone!" And Paroh put men in charge of him, and they sent him off with his wife and all that he possessed.