Read the Modern Pastor’s Version

The Lord said to Abram, "Leave your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to go to a land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, making your name great. And I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you; in you all families of the earth will be blessed.

Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, taking Sarai his wife, Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions they had accumulated in Haran, along with the people they had acquired there. When Abram was seventy-five years old, he left Haran and set out to go into the land of Canaan.

Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, reaching the plain of Moreh where the Canaanite was then living. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." There he built an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.

From there Abram removed to a mountain on the east of Bethel, pitching his tent with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built another altar unto the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. As Abram journeyed southward, he was led by God's guidance.

When Abram arrived in Egypt during a severe famine, he went down into Egypt to live temporarily there. Upon approaching Egypt with Sarai by his side, he realized that the Egyptians would see her as a beautiful woman and assume she was his wife. If they did, they would kill him but spare her life. Abram came up with a plan to protect himself.

Saying to Sarai, "Behold now, I know you are a fair woman to look upon," Abram asked her to pose as his sister in front of the Egyptians. When Pharaoh's officials saw Sarai and commended her beauty before their ruler, she was taken into Pharaoh's house. Abram benefited from this situation, receiving gifts from Pharaoh - sheep, oxen, donkeys, male servants, female servants, she-donkeys, and camels.

However, the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his household with severe plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. Eventually, Pharaoh called Abram to account for his actions, saying, "What have you done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she was your wife?" Abram explained, "I said she is my sister so I could spare our lives." The ruler realized his mistake and ordered his men to send Abram away with his wife and all their belongings.