God's Call to Abram

¹The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's home, and go to a land that I am going to show you.

²I will give you many descendants, and they will become a great nation. I will bless you and make your name famous, so that you will be a blessing.

³I will bless those who bless you, But I will curse those who curse you. And through you I will bless all the nations.”

⁴When Abram was seventy-five years old, he started out from Haran, as the Lord had told him to do; and Lot went with him.

⁵Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the wealth and all the slaves they had acquired in Haran, and they started out for the land of Canaan. When they arrived in Canaan,

⁶Abram traveled through the land until he came to the sacred tree of Moreh, the holy place at Shechem. (At that time the Canaanites were still living in the land.)

⁷The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “This is the country that I am going to give to your descendants.” Then Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

⁸After that, he moved on south to the hill country east of the city of Bethel and set up his camp between Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There also he built an altar and worshiped the Lord.

⁹Then he moved on from place to place, going toward the southern part of Canaan.

Abram in Egypt

¹⁰But there was a famine in Canaan, and it was so bad that Abram went farther south to Egypt, to live there for a while.

¹¹When he was about to cross the border into Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “You are a beautiful woman.

¹²When the Egyptians see you, they will assume that you are my wife, and so they will kill me and let you live.

¹³Tell them that you are my sister; then because of you they will let me live and treat me well.”

¹⁴When he crossed the border into Egypt, the Egyptians did see that his wife was beautiful.

¹⁵Some of the court officials saw her and told the king how beautiful she was; so she was taken to his palace.

¹⁶Because of her the king treated Abram well and gave him flocks of sheep and goats, cattle, donkeys, slaves, and camels.

¹⁷But because the king had taken Sarai, the Lord sent terrible diseases on him and on the people of his palace.

¹⁸Then the king sent for Abram and asked him, “What have you done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she was your wife?

¹⁹Why did you say that she was your sister, and let me take her as my wife? Here is your wife; take her and get out!”

²⁰The king gave orders to his men, so they took Abram and put him out of the country, together with his wife and everything he owned.

Abram and Lot Separate

¹Abram went north out of Egypt to the southern part of Canaan with his wife and everything he owned, and Lot went with him.

²Abram was a very rich man, with sheep, goats, and cattle, as well as silver and gold.

³Then he left there and moved from place to place, going toward Bethel. He reached the place between Bethel and Ai where he had camped before

⁴and had built an altar. There he worshiped the Lord.

⁵Lot also had sheep, goats, and cattle, as well as his own family and servants.

⁶And so there was not enough pasture land for the two of them to stay together, because they had too many animals.

⁷So quarrels broke out between the men who took care of Abram's animals and those who took care of Lot's animals. (At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were still living in the land.)

⁸Then Abram said to Lot, “We are relatives, and your men and my men shouldn't be quarreling.

⁹So let's separate. Choose any part of the land you want. You go one way, and I'll go the other.”

¹⁰Lot looked around and saw that the whole Jordan Valley, all the way to Zoar, had plenty of water, like the Garden of the Lord or like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord had destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.)

¹¹So Lot chose the whole Jordan Valley for himself and moved away toward the east. That is how the two men parted.

¹²Abram stayed in the land of Canaan, and Lot settled among the cities in the valley and camped near Sodom,

¹³whose people were wicked and sinned against the Lord.

Abram Moves to Hebron

¹⁴After Lot had left, the Lord said to Abram, “From where you are, look carefully in all directions.

¹⁵I am going to give you and your descendants all the land that you see, and it will be yours forever.

¹⁶I am going to give you so many descendants that no one will be able to count them all; it would be as easy to count all the specks of dust on earth!

¹⁷Now, go and look over the whole land, because I am going to give it all to you.”

¹⁸So Abram moved his camp and settled near the sacred trees of Mamre at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the Lord.

Satan Tests Job

¹There was a man named Job, living in the land of Uz, who worshiped God and was faithful to him. He was a good man, careful not to do anything evil.

²He had seven sons and three daughters,

³and owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, one thousand head of cattle, and five hundred donkeys. He also had a large number of servants and was the richest man in the East.

⁴Job's sons used to take turns giving a feast, to which all the others would come, and they always invited their three sisters to join them.

⁵The morning after each feast, Job would get up early and offer sacrifices for each of his children in order to purify them. He always did this because he thought that one of them might have sinned by insulting God unintentionally.

⁶When the day came for the heavenly beings to appear before the Lord, Satan was there among them.

⁷The Lord asked him, “What have you been doing?” Satan answered, “I have been walking here and there, roaming around the earth.”

⁸“Did you notice my servant Job?” the Lord asked. “There is no one on earth as faithful and good as he is. He worships me and is careful not to do anything evil.”

⁹Satan replied, “Would Job worship you if he got nothing out of it?

¹⁰You have always protected him and his family and everything he owns. You bless everything he does, and you have given him enough cattle to fill the whole country.

¹¹But now suppose you take away everything he has—he will curse you to your face!”

¹²“All right,” the Lord said to Satan, “everything he has is in your power, but you must not hurt Job himself.” So Satan left.

Job's Children and Wealth Are Destroyed

¹³One day when Job's children were having a feast at the home of their oldest brother,

¹⁴a messenger came running to Job. “We were plowing the fields with the oxen,” he said, “and the donkeys were in a nearby pasture.

¹⁵Suddenly the Sabeans attacked and stole them all. They killed every one of your servants except me. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

¹⁶Before he had finished speaking, another servant came and said, “Lightning struck the sheep and the shepherds and killed them all. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

¹⁷Before he had finished speaking, another servant came and said, “Three bands of Chaldean raiders attacked us, took away the camels, and killed all your servants except me. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

¹⁸Before he had finished speaking, another servant came and said, “Your children were having a feast at the home of your oldest son,

¹⁹when a storm swept in from the desert. It blew the house down and killed them all. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

²⁰Then Job got up and tore his clothes in grief. He shaved his head and threw himself face downward on the ground.

²¹He said, “I was born with nothing, and I will die with nothing. The Lord gave, and now he has taken away. May his name be praised!”

²²In spite of everything that had happened, Job did not sin by blaming God.

Satan Tests Job Again

¹When the day came for the heavenly beings to appear before the Lord again, Satan was there among them.

²The Lord asked him, “Where have you been?” Satan answered, “I have been walking here and there, roaming around the earth.”

³“Did you notice my servant Job?” the Lord asked. “There is no one on earth as faithful and good as he is. He worships me and is careful not to do anything evil. You persuaded me to let you attack him for no reason at all, but Job is still as faithful as ever.”

⁴Satan replied, “A person will give up everything in order to stay alive.

⁵But now suppose you hurt his body—he will curse you to your face!”

⁶So the Lord said to Satan, “All right, he is in your power, but you are not to kill him.”

⁷Then Satan left the Lord's presence and made sores break out all over Job's body.

⁸Job went and sat by the garbage dump and took a piece of broken pottery to scrape his sores.

⁹His wife said to him, “You are still as faithful as ever, aren't you? Why don't you curse God and die?”

¹⁰Job answered, “You are talking nonsense! When God sends us something good, we welcome it. How can we complain when he sends us trouble?” Even in all this suffering Job said nothing against God.

Job's Friends Come

¹¹Three of Job's friends were Eliphaz, from the city of Teman, Bildad, from the land of Shuah, and Zophar, from the land of Naamah. When they heard how much Job had been suffering, they decided to go and comfort him.

¹²While they were still a long way off they saw Job, but did not recognize him. When they did, they began to weep and wail, tearing their clothes in grief and throwing dust into the air and on their heads.

¹³Then they sat there on the ground with him for seven days and nights without saying a word, because they saw how much he was suffering.

The Value of Proverbs

¹The proverbs of Solomon, son of David and king of Israel.

²Here are proverbs that will help you recognize wisdom and good advice, and understand sayings with deep meaning.

³They can teach you how to live intelligently and how to be honest, just, and fair.

⁴They can make an inexperienced person clever and teach young people how to be resourceful.

⁵These proverbs can even add to the knowledge of the wise and give guidance to the educated,

⁶so that they can understand the hidden meanings of proverbs and the problems that the wise raise.

Advice to the Young

⁷To have knowledge, you must first have reverence for the Lord. Stupid people have no respect for wisdom and refuse to learn.