The LORD tells Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice
1Some years later God decided to test Abraham, so he spoke to him.
Abraham answered, “Here I am, LORD.”
2The LORD said, “Go and get Isaac, your only son, the one you dearly love! Take him to the land of Moriah, and I will show you a mountain where you must sacrifice him to me on the fires of an altar.” 3So Abraham got up early the next morning and chopped wood for the fire. He put a saddle on his donkey and left with Isaac and two servants for the place where God had told him to go.
4Three days later Abraham looked into the distance and saw the place. 5He told his servants, “Stay here with the donkey, while my son and I go over there to worship. We will come back.”
6Abraham put the wood on Isaac's shoulder, but he carried the hot coals and the knife. As the two of them walked along, 7-8Isaac said, “Father, we have the coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”
“My son,” Abraham answered, “God will provide the lamb.”
The two of them walked on, and 9when they reached the place that God had told him about, Abraham built an altar and placed the wood on it. Next, he tied up his son and put him on the wood. 10He then took the knife and got ready to kill his son. 11But the LORD's angel shouted from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am!” he answered.
12“Don't hurt the boy or harm him in any way!” the angel said. “Now I know that you truly obey God, because you were willing to offer him your only son.”
13Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in the bushes. So he took the ram and sacrificed it in place of his son.
14Abraham named that place “The LORD will Provide”. And even now people say, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
15The LORD's angel called out from heaven a second time:
16You were willing to offer the LORD your only son, and so he makes you this solemn promise, 17“I will bless you and give you such a large family, that some day your descendants will be more numerous than the stars in the sky or the grains of sand along the beach. They will defeat their enemies and take over the cities where their enemies live. 18You have obeyed me, and so you and your descendants will be a blessing to all nations on earth.”
19Abraham and Isaac went back to the servants who had come with him, and they returned to Abraham's home in Beersheba.
The children of Nahor
20-23Abraham's brother Nahor had married Milcah, and Abraham was later told that they had eight sons. Uz was their firstborn; Buz was next, and then there was Kemuel who became the father of Aram; their other five sons were: Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel, who became the father of Rebekah. 24Nahor also had another wife. Her name was Reumah, and she had four sons: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.
