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 ¹ Now there was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines in Gerar.

 ² And the LORD appeared to him, and said, "Do not go down into Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you.

 ³ Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you; for I will give to you and to your seed [descendants], all these lands, and I will perform the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.

 ⁴ And I will make your descendants multiply like the stars of the heavens, and will give all these lands to your descendants; and in your seed shall all the peoples of the earth be blessed;

 ⁵ Because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commands, my statutes, and my laws.¹

 ⁶ So Isaac dwelled in Gerar.

 ⁷ When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, "She is my sister;" for he was afraid to say, "She is my wife;" lest, he thought, "the men of this place might kill me for Rebekah, because she is beautiful."

 ⁸ And when he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

 ⁹ And Abimelech called Isaac and said, "Obviously she is your wife! How could you say, 'She is my sister?'" And Isaac said to him, "Because I thought, 'I might die because of her.'"

 ¹⁰ And Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us."

 ¹¹ And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, "He who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death."

 ¹² Then Isaac sowed seed in that land in the same year and reaped a hundredfold, and the LORD blessed him.

 ¹³ And the man became wealthy and continued prospering until he became very great;

 ¹⁴ For he had possession of flocks, and herds, and a great many servants, and the Philistines envied him.

 ¹⁵ So all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, the Philistines had stopped up and filled with earth.

 ¹⁶ Then Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we are."

 ¹⁷ So Isaac departed there and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there.

 ¹⁸ And Isaac dug again the wells of water, which they had dug in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he called them by the names that his father had called them.

 ¹⁹ And Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found a well of spring water there.

 ²⁰ And the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, "The water is ours." And he called the name of the well Esek [contention]; because they quarreled with him.

 ²¹ Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also; and he called the name of it Sitnah [enmity].

 ²² And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over that one. And he called its name Rehoboth [room], and he said, "For now the LORD has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land."

 ²³ Then he went up from there to Beersheba.

 ²⁴ And the LORD appeared to him the same night and said, "I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not fear, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your descendants for my servant Abraham's sake."

 ²⁵ And he built an altar there and called upon the name of the LORD and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac's servants dug a well.

 ²⁶ Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain of his army.

 ²⁷ And Isaac said to them, "Why have you come to me, since you hate me and have sent me away from you?"

 ²⁸ And they said, "We saw certainly that the LORD was with you; and we said, 'Let there be an oath between us, even between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you,

 ²⁹ That you will do us no harm, since we have not touched you and have done nothing but good to you and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the LORD!'"

 ³⁰ And he made them a dinner, and they ate and drank.

 ³¹ And they rose early in the morning, and swore an oath to one another; and Isaac sent them away and they departed from him in peace.

 ³² That same day, Isaac's servants came and told him about the well they had dug, and said to him, "We have found water!"

 ³³ And he called it Shebah; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.

 ³⁴ Now when Esau was forty years old he married Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and also Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite.

 ³⁵ And they were a grief of mind to Isaac and to Rebekah.