God Calls Abram

Many years later, in the city of Haran, there lived a man named Abram. His wife was named Sarai. They had no children, though they wished for them very much. One day the Lord said to Abram, “Go out from your land and your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.” So Abram went, just as the Lord told him — he and Sarai, and his nephew Lot, with their tents and their servants and all their sheep and cattle and camels. They walked and walked, all the way to the land of Canaan. There the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your seed — to your family after you.” And Abram built an altar there to the Lord, and called on his name.

Abram and Lot both had so many sheep and cattle that the land could not hold them together, and their herdsmen began to quarrel. So Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no quarrel between you and me, for we are family. Look, the whole land is before you. If you go left, I will go right; if you go right, I will go left.” Lot looked out and saw the green valley of the Jordan, well watered like a garden, and he chose it for himself and moved his tents near a city called Sodom. Abram stayed in the land of Canaan. And God said to Abram, “Lift up your eyes and look — north and south, east and west. All the land you see, I will give to you and to your seed forever. Rise and walk through it, for it is yours.”

But the years went by, and still Abram and Sarai had no children. One night, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am shielding you. Your reward will be very great.” Abram asked how it could be, since he had no child of his own. Then God brought him outside, under the night sky, and said, “Look up at heaven, and count the stars — if you can count them all. So shall your seed be.” The sky was blazing with stars, more than anyone could ever count. And Abram believed God — and God counted him as righteous. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram: a forever promise that this land would belong to his family.