Genesis, 12

¹ And Jehovah proceeded to say to Aʹbram: “Go your way out of your country and from your relatives^*1 and from the house of your father to the country that I shall show you;

² and I shall make a great nation out of you and I shall bless you and I will make your name great; and prove yourself a blessing.

³ And I will bless those who bless you, and him that calls down evil upon you I shall curse, and all the families of the ground will certainly bless themselves^*1 by means of you.”

⁴ At that Aʹbram went just as Jehovah had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Aʹbram was seventy-five years old when he went out from Haʹran.

⁵ So Aʹbram took Sarʹai his wife and Lot the son of his brother and all the goods that they had accumulated and the souls whom they had acquired in Haʹran, and they got on their way out to go to the land of Caʹnaan. Finally they came to the land of Caʹnaan.

⁶ And Aʹbram went on through the land as far as the site of Sheʹchem,^*1 near the big trees of Moʹreh; and at that time the Caʹnaan·ite was in the land.

⁷ Jehovah now appeared to Aʹbram and said: “To your seed I am going to give this land.” After that he built an altar there to Jehovah, who had appeared to him.

⁸ Later he moved from there to the mountainous region to the east of Bethʹel and pitched his tent with Bethʹel on the west and Aʹi on the east. Then he built an altar there to Jehovah and began to call on the name^*1 of Jehovah.

⁹ Afterward Aʹbram broke camp, going then from encampment to encampment toward the Negʹeb.^*1

¹⁰ Now a famine arose in the land and Aʹbram made his way down toward Egypt to reside there as an alien, because the famine was severe in the land.

¹¹ And it came about that as soon as he got near to entering Egypt, then he said to Sarʹai his wife: “Please, now! I well know you are a woman beautiful in appearance.

¹² So it is bound to happen that the Egyptians will see you and will say, ‘This is his wife.’ And they will certainly kill me, but you they will preserve alive.

¹³ Please say you are my sister, in order that it may go well with me on your account, and my soul will be certain to live due to you.”

¹⁴ So it happened that, as soon as Aʹbram entered Egypt, the Egyptians got to see the woman, that she was very beautiful.

¹⁵ And the princes of Pharʹaoh^*1 also got to see her and they began praising her to Pharʹaoh, so that the woman was taken to the house of Pharʹaoh.

¹⁶ And he treated Aʹbram well on her account, and he came to have sheep and cattle and asses and menservants and maidservants and she-asses and camels.

¹⁷ Then Jehovah touched Pharʹaoh and his household with great plagues because of Sarʹai, Aʹbram’s wife.

¹⁸ With that Pharʹaoh called Aʹbram and said: “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?

¹⁹ Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I was about to take her as my wife? And now here is your wife. Take her and go!”

²⁰ And Pharʹaoh issued commands to men concerning him, and they went escorting him and his wife and all that he had.^*1