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I know,” the Lord replied. “That is why I held you back from sinning against me; that is why I didn’t let you touch her. 7  Now restore her to her husband, and he will pray for you (for he is a prophet) and you shall live. But if you don’t return her to him, you are doomed to death along with all your household.”
         8  The king was up early the next morning, and hastily called a meeting of all the palace personnel and told them what had happened. And great fear swept through the crowd.
         9-10  Then the king called for Abraham. “What is this you’ve done to us?” he demanded. “What have I done that deserves treatment like this, to make me and my kingdom guilty of this great sin? Who would suspect that you would do a thing like this to me? Whatever made you think of this vile deed?”
         11-12  “Well,” Abraham said, “I figured this to be a godless place. ‘They will want my wife and will kill me to get her,’ I thought. And besides, she is my sister—or at least a half sister (we both have the same father)—and I married her. 13  And when God sent me traveling far from my childhood home, I told her, ‘Have the kindness to mention, wherever we come, that you are my sister.’”
         14  Then King Abimelech took sheep and oxen and servants—both men and women—and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him.
         15  “Look my kingdom over, and choose the place where you want to live,” the king told him. 16  Then he turned to Sarah. “Look,” he said, “I am giving your ‘brother’ a thousand silver pieces as damages for what I did, to compensate for any embarrassment and to settle any claim against me regarding this matter. Now justice has been done.”
         17  Then Abraham prayed, asking God to cure the king and queen and the other women of the household, so that they could have children; 18  for God had stricken all the women with barrenness to punish Abimelech for taking Abraham’s wife.
    Genesis 21
    Then God did as he had promised, and Sarah became pregnant and gave Abraham a baby son in his old age, at the time God had said; 3  and Abraham named him Isaac (meaning “Laughter!”). 4-5  Eight days after he was born, Abraham circumcised him, as God required. (Abraham was 100 years old at that time.)
         6  And Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter! All who hear about this shall rejoice with me. 7  For who would have dreamed that I would ever have a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a child in his old age!”
         8  Time went by and the child grew and was weaned; and Abraham gave a party to celebrate the happy occasion. 9  But when Sarah noticed Ishmael—the son of Abraham and the Egyptian girl Hagar—teasing * Isaac, 10  she turned upon Abraham and demanded, “Get rid of that slave girl and her son. He is not going to share your property with my son. I won’t have it.”
         11  This upset Abraham very much, for after all, Ishmael too was his son.
         12  But God told Abraham, “Don’t be upset over the boy or your slave-girl wife; do as Sarah says, for Isaac is the son through whom my promise will be fulfilled. 13  And I will make a nation of the descendants of the slave girl’s son, too, because he also is yours.”
         14  So Abraham got up early the next morning, prepared food for the journey, and strapped a canteen of water to Hagar’s shoulders and sent her away with their son. She walked out into the wilderness of Beersheba, wandering aimlessly.
         15  When the water was gone she left the youth in the shade of a bush 16  and went off and sat down a hundred yards or so away. “I don’t want to watch him die,” she said, and burst into tears, sobbing wildly.
         17  Then God heard the boy crying, and the Angel of God called to Hagar from the sky, “Hagar, what’s wrong? Don’t be afraid! For God has heard the lad’s cries as he is lying there. 18