Genesis

Chapter 16

Birth of Ishmael. ¹Abram’s wife Sarai had borne him no children. Now she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. ²Sarai said to Abram: “The Lord has kept me from bearing children. Have intercourse with my maid; perhaps I will have sons through her.” Abram obeyed Sarai. ³Thus, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, his wife Sarai took her maid, Hagar the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. ⁴He had intercourse with her, and she became pregnant. As soon as Hagar knew she was pregnant, her mistress lost stature in her eyes. ⁵So Sarai said to Abram: “This outrage against me is your fault. I myself gave my maid to your embrace; but ever since she knew she was pregnant, I have lost stature in her eyes. May the Lord decide between you and me!” ⁶Abram told Sarai: “Your maid is in your power. Do to her what you regard as right.” Sarai then mistreated her so much that Hagar ran away from her.

⁷The Lord’s angel found her by a spring in the wilderness, the spring on the road to Shur, ⁸and he asked, “Hagar, maid of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She answered, “I am running away from my mistress, Sarai.” ⁹But the Lord’s angel told her: “Go back to your mistress and submit to her authority. ¹⁰I will make your descendants so numerous,” added the Lord’s angel, “that they will be too many to count.” ¹¹Then the Lord’s angel said to her:

¹³To the Lord who spoke to her she gave a name, saying, “You are God who sees me”; she meant, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after he saw me?” ¹⁴That is why the well is called Beer-lahai-roi. It is between Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram named the son whom Hagar bore him Ishmael. ¹⁶Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

Chapter 17

¹⁵God further said to Abraham: As for Sarai your wife, do not call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. ¹⁶I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her. Her also will I bless; she will give rise to nations, and rulers of peoples will issue from her. ¹⁷Abraham fell face down and laughed as he said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah give birth at ninety?” ¹⁸So Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael could live in your favor!” ¹⁹God replied: Even so, your wife Sarah is to bear you a son, and you shall call him Isaac. It is with him that I will maintain my covenant as an everlasting covenant and with his descendants after him. ²⁰Now as for Ishmael, I will heed you: I hereby bless him. I will make him fertile and will multiply him exceedingly. He will become the father of twelve chieftains, and I will make of him a great nation. ²¹But my covenant I will maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you by this time next year. ²²When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God departed from him.

²³Then Abraham took his son Ishmael and all his slaves, whether born in his house or acquired with his money—every male among the members of Abraham’s household—and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins on that same day, as God had told him to do. ²⁴Abraham was ninety-nine years old when the flesh of his foreskin was circumcised, ²⁵and his son Ishmael was thirteen years old when the flesh of his foreskin was circumcised. ²⁶Thus, on that same day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised; ²⁷and all the males of his household, including the slaves born in his house or acquired with his money from foreigners, were circumcised with him.

Chapter 18

Abraham’s Visitors. ¹The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oak of Mamre, as he sat in the entrance of his tent, while the day was growing hot. ²Looking up, he saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them; and bowing to the ground, ³he said: “Sir, if it please you, do not go on past your servant. ⁴Let some water be brought, that you may bathe your feet, and then rest under the tree. ⁵Now that you have come to your servant, let me bring you a little food, that you may refresh yourselves; and afterward you may go on your way.” “Very well,” they replied, “do as you have said.”

⁶Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick, three measures of bran flour! Knead it and make bread.” ⁷He ran to the herd, picked out a tender, choice calf, and gave it to a servant, who quickly prepared it. ⁸Then he got some curds and milk, as well as the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them, waiting on them under the tree while they ate.

⁹“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There in the tent,” he replied. ¹⁰One of them said, “I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son.” Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent, just behind him. ¹¹Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years, and Sarah had stopped having her menstrual periods. ¹²So Sarah laughed to herself and said, “Now that I am worn out and my husband is old, am I still to have sexual pleasure?” ¹³But the Lord said to Abraham: “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really bear a child, old as I am?’ ¹⁴Is anything too marvelous for the Lord to do? At the appointed time, about this time next year, I will return to you, and Sarah will have a son.” ¹⁵Sarah lied, saying, “I did not laugh,” because she was afraid. But he said, “Yes, you did.”

Chapter 21

Birth of Isaac. ¹The Lord took note of Sarah as he had said he would; the Lord did for her as he had promised. ²Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time that God had stated. ³Abraham gave the name Isaac to this son of his whom Sarah bore him. ⁴When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded. ⁵Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. ⁶Sarah then said, “God has given me cause to laugh, and all who hear of it will laugh with me. ⁷Who would ever have told Abraham,” she added, “that Sarah would nurse children! Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” ⁸The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great banquet on the day of the child’s weaning.

⁹Sarah noticed the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing with her son Isaac; ¹⁰so she demanded of Abraham: “Drive out that slave and her son! No son of that slave is going to share the inheritance with my son Isaac!” ¹¹Abraham was greatly distressed because it concerned a son of his. ¹²But God said to Abraham: Do not be distressed about the boy or about your slave woman. Obey Sarah, no matter what she asks of you; for it is through Isaac that descendants will bear your name. ¹³As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, since he too is your offspring.

¹⁴Early the next morning Abraham got some bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. Then, placing the child on her back, he sent her away. As she roamed aimlessly in the wilderness of Beer-sheba, ¹⁵the water in the skin was used up. So she put the child down under one of the bushes, ¹⁶and then went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away; for she said to herself, “I cannot watch the child die.” As she sat opposite him, she wept aloud. ¹⁷God heard the boy’s voice, and God’s angel called to Hagar from heaven: “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not fear; God has heard the boy’s voice in this plight of his. ¹⁸Get up, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand; for I will make of him a great nation.” ¹⁹Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water, and then let the boy drink.

²⁰God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert bowman. ²¹He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

For footnotes and cross references see BibleGateway.com or United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)