Genesis 12Book 1 of 66 · 20 verses · MBT primary, NKJV fallback where MBT pending

  1. Now the LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you.
  2. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.
  3. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who treats you with contempt, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
  4. So Abram went forth as the LORD had instructed him, and Lot went with him, and Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
  5. Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions that they had accumulated, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan, and so they came to the land of Canaan.
  6. Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh, and at that time the Canaanites were in the land.
  7. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
  8. And he moved from there to the hill country east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD.
  9. So Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negev.
  10. Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to stay there for a while, for the famine was severe in the land.
  11. And it came to pass, when he was close to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, "Look, I know that you are a beautiful woman in appearance.
  12. Therefore it will happen, when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife,' and they will kill me, but they will let you live.
  13. Please say you are my sister, that it may go well with me for your sake, and that my life may be spared because of you.
  14. So it was, when Abram entered Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful.
  15. The officials of Pharaoh saw her and praised her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's palace.
  16. He treated Abram well for her sake, and gave him sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
  17. But the LORD struck Pharaoh and his household with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife.
  18. So Pharaoh summoned Abram 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 took her as my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her and go your way.
  20. So Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, and they escorted him away with his wife and all that he had.