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Giovedi, 28 marzo 2024 - San Castore di Tarso ( Letture di oggi)

Genesis 21


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1Yahweh treated Sarah as he had said, and did what he had promised her.2Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time God had promised.3Abraham named the son born to him Isaac, the son to whom Sarah had given birth.4Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.5Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.6Sarah said: God has given me cause to laugh! Al who hear about this wil laugh with me!7She added: Whoever would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children! Yet I have borne ason in his old age.8The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham gave a great banquet on the day Isaac was weaned.9Now Sarah watched the son that Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, playing with her sonIsaac.10'Drive away that slave-girl and her son,' she said to Abraham, 'this slave-girl's son is not to share theinheritance with my son Isaac.'11This greatly distressed Abraham, because the slave-girl's child too was his son,12but God said to him, 'Do not distress yourself on account of the boy and your slave-girl. Do whateverSarah says, for Isaac is the one through whom your name wil be carried on.13But the slave-girl's son I shal also make into a great nation, for he too is your child.'14Early next morning, Abraham took some bread and a skin of water and, giving them to Hagar, putthe child on her shoulder and sent her away. She wandered off into the desert of Beersheba.15When the skin of water was finished she abandoned the child under a bush.16Then she went and sat down at a distance, about a bowshot away, thinking, 'I cannot bear to see thechild die.' Sitting at a distance, she began to sob.17God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven. 'What is wrong,Hagar?' he asked. 'Do not be afraid, for God has heard the boy's cry in his plight.18Go and pick the boy up and hold him safe, for I shal make him into a great nation.'19Then God opened Hagar's eyes and she saw a well, so she went and fil ed the skin with water andgave the boy a drink.20God was with the boy. He grew up and made his home in the desert, and he became an archer.21He made his home in the desert of Paran, and his mother got him a wife from Egypt.22About then, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, 'Since God is withyou in everything you do,23swear to me by God, here and now, that you wil not act treacherously towards me or my kith andkin, but behave with the same faithful love to me and the land of which you are a guest as I have behaved toyou.'24'Yes,' Abraham replied, 'I swear it.'25Abraham then reproached Abimelech about a well that Abimelech's servants had seized.26'I do not know who has done this,' Abimelech said. 'You yourself have never mentioned it to me and,for myself, I heard nothing of it til today.'27Abraham then took sheep and cattle and presented them to Abimelech, and the two of them made acovenant.28Abraham put seven lambs of the flock on one side.29'Why have you put these seven lambs on one side?' Abimelech asked Abraham.30He replied, 'You must accept these seven lambs from me as evidence that I have dug this wel .'31This was why the place was cal ed Beersheba: because there the two of them swore an oath.32After they had made a covenant at Beersheba, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army,left and went back to Philistine territory.33And Abraham planted a tamarisk at Beersheba and there he invoked the name of Yahweh.34Abraham stayed for a long while in Philistine territory.