1
Now there was aa famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to bAbimelech king of the Philistines.
2
The Lord aappeared to him and said, "Do not go down to Egypt; bstay in the land of which I shall tell you.
3
"Sojourn in this land and aI will be with you and bbless you, for cto you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish dthe oath which I swore to your father Abraham.
4
"aI will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and bby your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;
5
because Abraham aobeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws."
6
So Isaac lived in Gerar.
7
When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, "aShe is my sister," for he was bafraid to say, "my wife," thinking, "the men of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is cbeautiful."
8
It came about, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out through a window, and saw, and behold, Isaac was caressing his wife Rebekah.
9
Then Abimelech called Isaac and said, "Behold, certainly she is your wife! How then did you say, 'She is my sister'?" And Isaac said to him, "Because I said, 'I might die on account of her.'"
10
aAbimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us."
11
So Abimelech charged all the people, saying, "He who atouches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death."
12
Now Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. And athe Lord blessed him,
13
and the man abecame rich, and continued to grow richer until he became very wealthy;
14
for ahe had possessions of flocks and herds and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him.
15
Now aall the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped up by filling them with earth.
16
Then Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go away from us, for you are atoo powerful for us."
17
And Isaac departed from there and camped in the valley of Gerar, and settled there.
18
Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he gave them the same names which his father had given them.
19
But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of flowing water,
20
the herdsmen of Gerar aquarreled with the herdsmen of Isaac, saying, "The water is ours!" So he named the well Esek, because they contended with him.
21
Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over it too, so he named it Sitnah.
22
He moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he named it Rehoboth, for he said, "aAt last the Lord has made room for us, and we will be bfruitful in the land."
23
Then he went up from there to aBeersheba.
24
The Lord aappeared to him the same night and said,
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.