¹And 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, to Gerar.

²And Yahweh appeared to him, and said, Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land that I will tell you.

³Stay as a guest in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and to your seed I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.

⁴And I will multiply your seed like the stars of the skies, and I will give to your seed all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the land will bless themselves,

⁵because Abraham listened to my voice, and kept my duty, my commands, my statutes, and my instructions.

⁶And Isaac dwelled in Gerar.

⁷And the men of the place asked about his wife; and he said, She is my sister; for he was afraid to say, My wife; lest the men of the place kill me on account of Rebekah; because she was good in appearance.

⁸And it happened, when his days there had grown long, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down through the window, and saw, and behold, Isaac was laughing playfully with Rebekah his wife.

⁹And Abimelech called Isaac and said, Surely, behold, she is your wife! So how could you say, She is my sister? And Isaac said to him, Because I thought, lest I die on account of her.

¹⁰And Abimelech said, What is this you have done to us? A little more and one of the people would have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.

¹¹And Abimelech commanded all the people, saying, Whoever touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death.

¹²And Isaac sowed in that land, and found in that year a hundred measures; and Yahweh blessed him.

¹³And the man became great, and he went on, going and growing great, until he became great exceedingly.

¹⁴And he had livestock of the flock, and livestock of cattle, and a great household; and the Philistines envied him.

¹⁵And all the pits that his father's slaves had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped them up and filled them with dust.

¹⁶And Abimelech said to Isaac, Go away from us, for you have become much more powerful than we.

¹⁷And Isaac went from there, and encamped in the wadi of Gerar, and dwelled there.

¹⁸And Isaac returned and dug the pits of water that people had dug in the days of Abraham his father, and the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he called them by names, like the names that his father had called them.

¹⁹And Isaac's slaves dug in the wadi and found there a pit of living water.

²⁰And the shepherds of Gerar contended with the shepherds of Isaac, saying, The water is ours; and he called the name of the pit Esek, because they quarreled with him.

²¹And they dug another pit, and they contended also over it; and he called its name Sitnah.

²²And he moved on from there and dug another pit, and they did not contend over it; and he called its name Rehoboth, and said, For now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.

²³And he went up from there to Beer-sheba.

²⁴And Yahweh appeared to him that night, and said, I am the God of Abraham your father; do not be afraid, for I am with you, and I will bless you and multiply your seed, for the sake of Abraham my slave.

²⁵And he built an altar there, and called on the name of Yahweh, and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac's slaves dug a pit.

²⁶And Abimelech came to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his companion and Phicol the chief of his host.

²⁷And Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, when you hated me and sent me away from you?

²⁸And they said, We have certainly seen that Yahweh has been with you; so we said, Please let there be an oath between us, between us and between you, and let us cut a covenant with you,

²⁹that you will do us no evil, just as we have not touched you, and just as we have done only good with you and sent you away in wholeness; you are now blessed of Yahweh.

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

³¹They rose early in the morning and each man swore an oath to his brother. Then Isaac sent them off, and they went from him in wholeness.

³²It happened on that day that Isaac's slaves came and told him about the pit they had dug, and said to him, "We have found water."

³³He called it Shibah; therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba to this day.

³⁴When Esau was forty years old, he took as wife Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite.

³⁵They were a bitterness of breath to Isaac and to Rebekah.