 1 There was a famine in the land, besides the famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to King Abimelech of the Philistines in Gerar. 2 The Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down into Egypt. Live in the land that I will tell you. 3 Stay in this land and I will be with you and bless you. I will give all these lands to you and your descendants and I will establish the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. 4 I will make your descendants to multiply as the stars of the heavens, and will give to your descendants all these lands. In your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed, 5 because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. 6 Isaac lived in Gerar. 7 The men of the place asked about his wife. And he said, She is my sister. For he feared to say, my wife. Lest the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah, because she was beautiful of form. 8 When he had been there a long time, King Abimelech of the Philistines looked out through the window and saw Isaac caressing+ his wife Rebekah. 9 Abimelech called Isaac and said, Behold. Surely she is your wife. Why did you say she is my sister? Isaac said to him, I said that because otherwise I might die on account of her. 10 Abimelech said, What is this you have done to us? One of the people might have lain with your wife and you would have brought guilt upon us. 11 Abimelech charged all his people saying, Anyone who touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death. 12 Then Isaac sowed in that land and received in the same year a hundredfold because the Lord blessed him. 13 He became great and he went forward and grew until he became very great. 14 He had possession of flocks and possession of herds and many servants and the Philistines envied him. 15 For all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped and filled them with earth. 16 Abimelech said to Isaac, Go away from us for you are mightier than we are. 17 Isaac departed from there and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar and lived there. 18 Isaac again dug the wells of water that they had dug in the days of Abraham his father. For the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham. He called them names after the names by which his father had called them. 19 Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found a well there flowing with water. 20 The herdsmen of Gerar struggled with Isaac's herdsmen saying, That water is ours. So he called the name of that well contention because they struggled with him. 21 Then they dug another well and struggled over that also. So he called the name of it opposition. 22 Then he moved on from there and dug another well and they did not struggle over that one. So he called the name of it Rehoboth. He said, Now the Lord has made room for us and we will be fruitful in the land. 23 From there, he went to Beersheba. 24 The Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham your father. Do not fear, for I am with you, and will bless you and multiply your descendants for my servant Abraham's sake. 25 He built an altar there, and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there. And Isaac's servants dug a well there. 26 Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath, one of his friends, and Phicol the commander of his army. 27 Isaac said to them, Why do you come to me, since you hate me and have sent me away from you? 28 They said, We saw certainly that the Lord was with you. And we said, Let there be now an oath between us, between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you; 29 that you will do us no harm since we have not touched you, and since we have done nothing but good to you, and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord. 30 He made them a feast, and they ate and drank. 31 They rose early in the morning, and swore to one another. And Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. 32 The same day, Isaac's servants came and told him about the well that they had dug and they said to him, We have found water. 33 He called it Shebah. Therefore the name of the city is The Well of Sheba to this day. 34 Esau was 40 years old when he took Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite as his wife. 35 This was a grief of spirit to Isaac and to Rebekah.
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