Read the Bible

¹ Then came a time of great need in the land, like that which had been before in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar.² And the Lord came to him in a vision and said, Do not go down to Egypt; keep in the land of which I will give you knowledge:³ Keep in this land, and I will be with you and give you my blessing; for to you and to your seed will I give all these lands, giving effect to the oath which I made to your father Abraham;⁴ I will make your seed like the stars of heaven in number, and will give them all these lands, and your seed will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth;⁵ Because Abraham gave ear to my voice and kept my words, my rules, my orders, and my laws.

⁶ So Isaac went on living in Gerar;⁷ And when he was questioned by the men of the place about his wife, he said, She is my sister; fearing to say, She is my wife; for, he said, the men of the place may put me to death on account of Rebekah; because she is very beautiful.⁸ And when he had been there for some time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looking through a window, saw Isaac playing with Rebekah his wife.⁹ And he said to Isaac, It is clear that she is your wife: why then did you say, She is my sister? And Isaac said, For fear that I might be put to death because of her.¹⁰ Then Abimelech said, What have you done to us? one of the people might well have had connection with your wife, and the sin would have been ours.¹¹ And Abimelech gave orders to his people that anyone touching Isaac or his wife was to be put to death.

¹² Now Isaac, planting seed in that land, got in the same year fruit a hundred times as much, for the blessing of the Lord was on him.¹³ And his wealth became very great, increasing more and more;¹⁴ For he had great wealth of flocks and herds and great numbers of servants; so that the Philistines were full of envy.¹⁵ Now all the water-holes, which his father's servants had made in the days of Abraham, had been stopped up with earth by the Philistines.¹⁶ And Abimelech said to Isaac, Go away from us, for you are stronger than we are.¹⁷ So Isaac went away from there, and put up his tents in the valley of Gerar, making his living-place there.¹⁸ And he made again the water-holes which had been made in the days of Abraham his father, and which had been stopped up by the Philistines; and he gave them the names which his father had given them.¹⁹ Now Isaac's servants made holes in the valley, and came to a spring of flowing water.²⁰ But the herdmen of Gerar had a fight with Isaac's herdmen, for they said, The spring is ours: so he gave the spring the name of Esek, because there was a fight about it.²¹ Then they made another water-hole, and there was a fight about that, so he gave it the name of Sitnah.²² Then he went away from there, and made another water-hole, about which there was no fighting: so he gave it the name of Rehoboth, for he said, Now the Lord has made room for us, and we will have fruit in this land.²³ And from there he went on to Beer-sheba.²⁴ That night the Lord came to him in a vision, and said, I am the God of your father Abraham: have no fear for I am with you, blessing you, and your seed will be increased because of my servant Abraham.²⁵ Then he made an altar there, and gave worship to the name of the Lord, and he put up his tents there, and there his servants made a water-hole.

²⁶ And Abimelech had come to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his friend and Phicol, the captain of his army.²⁷ And Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, seeing that in your hate for me you sent me away from you?²⁸ And they said, We saw clearly that the Lord was with you: so we said, Let there be an oath between us and you, and let us make an agreement with you;²⁹ That you will do us no damage, even as we put no hand on you, and did you nothing but good, and sent you away in peace: and now the blessing of the Lord is on you.³⁰ Then he made a feast for them, and they all had food and drink.³¹ And early in the morning they took an oath one to the other: then Isaac sent them away and they went on their way in peace.³² And that day Isaac's servants came to him and gave him word of the water-hole which they had made, and said to him, We have come to water.³³ And he gave it the name of Shibah: so the name of that town is Beer-sheba to this day.

³⁴ And when Esau was forty years old, he took as his wives Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite:³⁵ And Isaac and Rebekah had grief of mind because of them.