1There came a famine in the land—not the earlier famine in Abraham's time—and Isaac went to Abimelech the Philistine king at Gerar. 2The LORD appeared to Isaac and said, 'Do not go down to Egypt, but stay in this country as I bid you. 3Stay in this country and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands. Thus shall I fulfil the oath which I swore to your father Abraham. 4I will make your descendants as many as the stars in the sky; I will give them all these lands, and all the nations of the earth will pray to be blessed as they are blessed— 5all because Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.' 6So Isaac lived in Gerar.
7When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he told them that she was his sister; he was afraid to say that Rebecca was his wife, in case they killed him because of her; for she was very beautiful. 8When they had been there for some considerable time, Abimelech the Philistine king looked down from his window and saw Isaac and his wife Rebecca laughing together. 9He summoned Isaac and said, 'So she is your wife, is she? What made you say she was your sister?' Isaac answered, 'I thought I should be killed because of her.' 10Abimelech said, 'Why have you treated us like this? One of the people might easily have gone to bed with your wife, and then you would have made us liable to retribution.' 11So Abimelech warned all the people, threatening that whoever touched this man or his wife would be put to death.
12Isaac sowed seed in that land, and that year he reaped a hundredfold, and the LORD blessed him. 13He became more and more powerful, until he was very powerful indeed. 14He had flocks and herds and many slaves, so that the Philistines were envious of him. 15They had stopped up all the wells dug by the slaves in the days of Isaac's father Abraham, and filled them with earth. Isaac dug them again, all those wells dug in his father Abraham's time, and stopped up by the Philistines after his death, and he called them by the names which his father had given them.
16Then Abimelech said to him, 'Go away from here; you are too strong for us.' 17So Isaac left that place and encamped in the valley of Gerar, and stayed there. 18 19Then Isaac's slaves dug in the valley and found a spring of running water, 20but the shepherds of Gerar quarrelled with Isaac's shepherds, claiming the water as theirs. He called the well Esek , because they made difficulties for him. His men then dug another well, 21but the others quarrelled with him over that also, so he called it Sitnah . 22He moved on from there and dug another well, but there was no quarrel over that one, so he called it Rehoboth , saying, 'Now the LORD has given us plenty of room and we shall be fruitful in the land.'
23Isaac went up country from there to Beersheba. 24That same night the LORD appeared to him there and said, 'I am the God of your father Abraham. Fear nothing, for I am with you. I will bless you and give you many descendants for the sake of Abraham my servant.' 25So Isaac built an altar there and invoked the LORD by name. Then he pitched his tent there, and there also his slaves dug a well.
26Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his friend and Phicol the commander of his army. 27Isaac said to them, 'Why have you come here? You hate me and you sent me away.' 28They answered, 'We have seen plainly that the LORD is with you, so we thought, "Let the two of us put each other to the oath and make a treaty that will bind us." 29We have not attacked you, we have done you nothing but good, and we let you go away peaceably. Swear that you will do us no harm, now that the LORD has blessed you.' 30So Isaac gave a feast and they ate and drank. 31They rose early in the morning and exchanged oaths. Then Isaac bade them farewell, and they parted from him in peace. 32The same day Isaac's slaves came and told him about a well that they had dug: 'We have found water', they said. 33He named the well Shibah . This is why the city is called Beersheba to this day.
34When Esau was forty years old he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite; 35this was a bitter grief to Isaac and Rebecca.
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