Bible Gateway passage: Genesis 12 - New King James Version (2024)

Promises to Abram^(A)

12Now the ^(B)Lord had said to Abram:

“Get ^(C)out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
^2(D)I will make you a great nation;
^(E)I will bless you
And make your name great;
^(F)And you shall be a blessing.
^3(G)I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in ^(H)you all the families of the earth shall be ^(I)blessed.”

⁴So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. ⁵Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and ^(J)the ^[a]people whom they had acquired ^(K)in Haran, and they ^(L)departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan. ⁶Abram ^(M)passed through the land to the place of Shechem, ^(N)as far as ^[b]the terebinth tree of Moreh. ^(O)And the Canaanites were then in the land.

^7(P)Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ^(Q)“To your ^[c]descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an ^(R)altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. ⁸And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and ^(S)called on the name of the Lord. ⁹So Abram journeyed, ^(T)going on still toward the ^[d]South.

Abram in Egypt

¹⁰Now there was ^(U)a famine in the land, and Abram ^(V)went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was ^(W)severe in the land. ¹¹And it came to pass, when he was close to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “Indeed I know that you are ^(X)a woman of beautiful countenance. ¹²Therefore it will happen, when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they ^(Y)will kill me, but they will let you live. ^13(Z)Please say you are my ^(AA)sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that ^[e]I may live because of you.”

¹⁴So it was, when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she was very beautiful. ¹⁵The princes of Pharaoh also saw her and commended her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken to Pharaoh’s house. ¹⁶He ^(AB)treated Abram well for her sake. He ^(AC)had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

¹⁷But the Lord ^(AD)plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. ¹⁸And Pharaoh called Abram and said, ^(AE)“What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? ¹⁹Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’? I might have taken her as my wife. Now therefore, here is your wife; take her and go your way.” ^20(AF)So Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they sent him away, with his wife and all that he had.