Genesis 26

¹ There was a famine in the country -- different from the previous famine which took place in the time ofAbraham -- and Isaac went to Abimelech, the Philistine king at Gerar.

² Yahweh had appeared to him and said, 'Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the country which I shalpoint out to you.

³ Remain for the present in that country; I shal be with you and bless you, for I shal give al thesecountries to you and your descendants in fulfilment of the oath I swore to your father Abraham.

⁴ I shal make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven, and I shal give them al thesecountries, and al nations on earth wil bless themselves by your descendants

⁵ in return for Abraham's obedience; for he kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and mylaws.'

⁶ So Isaac stayed at Gerar.

⁷ When the people of the place asked him about his wife he replied, 'She is my sister,' for he was afraidto say, 'She is my wife,' thinking, 'The people of the place wil kil me because of Rebekah, since she is beautiful.'

⁸ When he had been there some time, Abimelech the Philistine king happened to look out of the windowand saw Isaac fondling his wife Rebekah.

⁹ Abimelech summoned Isaac and said to him, 'Surely she must be your wife! How could you have said,"She is my sister"?' Isaac replied, 'Because I thought I might be kil ed on her account.'

¹⁰ Abimelech said, 'What a thing to do to us! One of the people might easily have slept with your wife.We should have incurred guilt, thanks to you.'

¹¹ Then Abimelech issued this order to al the people: 'Whoever touches this man or his wife wil be putto death.'

¹² Isaac sowed his crops in that country, and that year he reaped a hundredfold. Yahweh blessed him

¹³ and the man became rich; he prospered more and more until he was very rich indeed.

¹⁴ He acquired flocks and herds and a large retinue. The Philistines began to envy him.

¹⁵ The Philistines had blocked up al the wel s dug by his father's servants -- in the days of his fatherAbraham -- fil ing them in with earth.

¹⁶ Then Abimelech said to Isaac, 'You must leave us, for you have become much more powerful thanwe are.'

¹⁷ So Isaac left; he pitched camp in the Val ey of Gerar and there he stayed.

¹⁸ Isaac reopened the wel s dug by the servants of his father Abraham and blocked up by thePhilistines after Abraham's death, and he gave them the same names as his father had given them.

¹⁹ But when Isaac's servants, digging in the val ey, found a wel of spring-water there,

²⁰ the herdsmen of Gerar disputed it with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, 'That water is ours!' So Isaacnamed the wel Esek, because they had disputed with him.

²¹ They dug another wel , and there was a dispute over that one too; so he named it Sitnah.

²² Then he left there, and dug another wel , and since there was no dispute over this one, he named itRehoboth, saying, 'Now Yahweh has made room for us to thrive in the country.'

²³ From there he went up to Beersheba.

²⁴ Yahweh appeared to him the same night and said: I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not beafraid, for I am with you. I shall bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake.

²⁵ There he built an altar and invoked the name of Yahweh. There he pitched his tent, and there Isaac'sservants sank a wel .

²⁶ Abimelech came from Gerar to see him, with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of hisarmy.

²⁷ Isaac said to them, 'Why do you come to me since you hate me, and have made me leave you?'

²⁸ 'It became clear to us that Yahweh was with you,' they replied, 'and so we thought, "It is time to havea treaty sworn between us, between us and you." So let us make a covenant with you:

²⁹ that you will not do us any harm, since we never molested you but were unfailingly kind to you andlet you go away in peace. Henceforth, Yahweh's blessing on you!'

³⁰ He then made them a feast and they ate and drank.

³¹ Early next morning, they exchanged oaths. Then Isaac bade them farewell and they left him asfriends.

³² It happened, the same day, that Isaac's servants brought him news about the well they had beendigging. 'We have found water!' they said to him.

³³ So he cal ed the wel Sheba, and hence the town is named Beersheba to this day.

³⁴ When Esau was forty years old he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemathdaughter of Elon the Hittite.

³⁵ These were a bitter disappointment to Isaac and Rebekah.