The Covenant
He [God] took him outside and said,
“Look up at the heavens and count the stars — if indeed you can count them.”
Then He said to him, “So shall be your offspring.”
Genesis 15:1 New International Version (NIV)
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children.
But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram,
“The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant;
perhaps I can build a family through her.”
Genesis 16:1-2 (NIV)
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.”
The angel added, “I will so increase your descendants
that they will be to numerous to count.”
And the angel of the Lord also said to her:
“You are now with child and you will have a son.
You shall name him Ismael, for the Lord has heard of your misery.”
Genesis 16:8b-11 (NIV)
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said,
“I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.
I will confirm my covenant between me and you
and will greatly increase your numbers…
No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham,
for I have made you a father of many nations.”
Genesis 17:1,5 (NIV)
“This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you,
the covenant you are to keep:
Every male among you shall be circumcised…
My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant.
Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh,
will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Genesis 17: 10,13b-14 (NIV)
God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife,
you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah.
I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her.
I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations;
kings of peoples will come from her.”
Genesis 17:15-16 (NIV)
Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers,
for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels
without knowing it.
Hebrews 13:2 (NIV)
“After I am worn out and my [husband] is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say,
‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’
Is anything too hard for the Lord?
I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
Genesis 18:12b-14 (NIV)
Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age,
at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac
to t son Sarah had bore him…
Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter,
and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”
Genesis 21: 2,6 (NIV)
When they reached the place God had told him about,
Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it.
He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.
Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said.
“Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God,
because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns.
He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.
So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide.
And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
Genesis 22:9-14 (NIV)
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah….
I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
Jeremiah 31:31,33 (NIV)