Home Master Index
←Prev   Genesis 20 as rendered by/in  Next→ 


20:1  Abraham traveled from there toward the land of the arid southern plain, and he settled as an immigrant in Gerar, between Kadesh and Shur.
20:2  Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She’s my sister.” So King Abimelech of Gerar took her into his household.
20:3  But God appeared to Abimelech that night in a dream and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of this woman you have taken. She is a married woman.”
20:4  Now Abimelech hadn’t gone near her, and he said, “Lord, will you really put an innocent nation to death?
20:5  Didn’t he say to me, ‘She’s my sister,’ and didn’t she—even she—say, ‘He’s my brother’? My intentions were pure, and I acted innocently when I did this.”
20:6  God said to him in the dream, “I know that your intentions were pure when you did this. In fact, I kept you from sinning against me. That’s why I didn’t allow you to touch her.
20:7  Now return the man’s wife. He’s a prophet; he will pray for you so you may live. But if you don’t return her, know that you and everyone with you will die!”
20:8  Abimelech got up early in the morning and summoned all of his servants. When he told them everything that had happened, the men were terrified.
20:9  Then Abimelech summoned Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? What sin did I commit against you that you have brought this terrible sin to me and my kingdom, by doing to me something that simply isn’t done?”
20:10  Abimelech said to Abraham, “What were you thinking when you did this thing?”
20:11  Abraham said, “I thought to myself, No one reveres God here and they will kill me to get my wife.
20:12  She is, truthfully, my sister—my father’s daughter but not my mother’s daughter—and she’s now my wife.
20:13  When God led me away from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is the loyalty I expect from you: in each place we visit, tell them, “He is my brother.”’”
20:14  Abimelech took flocks, cattle, male servants, and female servants, and gave them to Abraham; and Abimelech returned his wife Sarah.
20:15  Abimelech said, “My land is here available to you. Live wherever you wish.”
20:16  To Sarah, he said, “I’ve given your brother one thousand pieces of silver. It means that neither you nor anyone with you has done anything wrong. Everything has been set right.”
20:17  Abraham prayed to God; and God restored Abimelech, his wife, and his women servants to health, and they were able to have children.
20:18  Because of the incident with Abraham’s wife Sarah, the Lord had kept all of the women in Abimelech’s household from having children.