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¹ AND there was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gadar, to Abimeleck king of the Philistines.² And the LORD appeared to him, and said, Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you;³ Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you; for to you and to your descendants I will give all these kingdoms, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father;⁴ And I will make your descendants to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give to your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;⁵ Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

⁶ And Isaac dwelt in Gadar;⁷ And the men of the place asked him concerning his wife; and he said, She is my sister; for he was afraid to say, She is my wife; lest the men of the place should kill him on account of Rebekah, because she was fair to look upon.⁸ And it came to pass when he had been there a long time that Abimeleck king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac fondling Rebekah his wife.⁹ So Abimeleck called Isaac, and said, Behold, she is your wife; how then did you say, She is my sister? And Isaac said to him, Because I said, Lest I may die on account of her.¹⁰ And Abimeleck said to him, What is this thing that you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought sin upon us.¹¹ And Abimeleck charged all the people, saying, Whoever harms this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.

¹² Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year a hundredfold; and the LORD blessed him.¹³ And the man became great, and went forward and grew until he became very great;¹⁴ And he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and much wealth, so that the Philistines envied him.¹⁵ For all the wells which his fathers servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had polluted them and filled them with earth.¹⁶ And Abimeleck said to Isaac, Go away from among us; for you are much mightier than we.¹⁷ So Isaac departed from thence, and encamped in the valley of Gadar, and dwelt there.¹⁸ And Isaac digged again the wells of water which had been dug by the servants of his father in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had polluted them after the death of Abraham; and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.¹⁹ And Isaacs servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of living water.²⁰ And the herdsmen of Gadar quarreled with Isaacs herdsmen, saying, The water is ours; and he called the name of the well Aska (difficulty); because they disputed with him.²¹ And they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also; and he called the name of it Satana (the adversary).²² Then he moved from there, and dug another well; but over that they did not quarrel; and he called the name of it Rehoboth (to enlarge); and he said, For now the LORD has made room for us, and we shall multiply in the land.²³ And he went up from thence to Beer-sheba.²⁴ And the LORD appeared to him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham your father; fear not, for I am with you, and I will bless you, and multiply your descendants for my servant Abrahams sake.²⁵ And he built an altar there, and called upon the name of the LORD, and pitched his tent there; and there Isaacs servants dug a well.

²⁶ Then Abimeleck went to him from Gadar, and Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the general of his army.²⁷ And Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me, and have sent me away from you?²⁸ And they said, We saw certainly that the LORD is with you; so we said, Let there be now an oath between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you,²⁹ That you will do us no evil, just as we have not hurt you, and as we have done nothing but good to you, and have sent you away in peace; you are now the blessed of the LORD.³⁰ And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink.³¹ And they rose up in the early morning, and took oaths one with another; and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.³² And it came to pass the same day that Isaacs servants came, and spoke to him concerning the well which they had dug, and said to him, We have found water.³³ And he called it Sheba; therefore the name of the town is called Beer-sheba to this day.

³⁴ And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bismath the daughter of Elon the Hivite;³⁵ And they made life miserable for Isaac and Rebekah.