Abraham and Abimelech
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📚✭And Abraham journeyed from there toward the south country, and lived between Kadesh and Shur, and stayed for a while in Gerar. 2 📚✭And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister”, and Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.3 📚✭But God came to Abimelech in a dream at night and said to him, “Now you are the same as dead, because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife”.
4 📚But Abimelech had not come near her, and he said, “Lord, will you destroy righteous people? 5 📚Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister?’ And she also, she herself, said, ‘He is my brother’. I have done this in the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands”.
6 📚And God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart, for I also kept you from sinning✭ against me✭. For this reason I did not permit you to touch her. 7 📚So now return the man’s wife to him, for he is a prophet✭, and he will pray for you, and you will live. But if you do not return her, know for a certainty that you will die, you, and all who are yours”.
8 Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning, and called all his servants, and told all these things in their hearing. And the men were very afraid. 9 📚✭Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? In what have I offended you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done things to me that ought not to be done”.
10 And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see that you have done this thing?”
11 📚✭And Abraham said, “Because I thought, ‘Surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they will kill me on account of my wife.’ 12 📚And yet she really is my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. 13 📚And when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, it came about that I said to her, ‘You shall show me this kindness: wherever we go, say of me, ‘He is my brother.’ ”
14 📚And Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and male servants, and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and returned his wife Sarah to him. 15 📚And Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you. Live where it pleases you”.
16 📚And he said to Sarah, “See, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver✭. See, it is to cover the offense against you in the eyes of all who are with you; to everyone this is your vindication✭”.