Genesis 26

There was a famine in the land, on top of the earlier one in Abraham's time. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines at Gerar.

And the Lord appeared to Isaac and said, “Don't go down to Egypt. Live in the land I tell you about.

Stay in this land a while, and I'll be with you and bless you. I'll give all these lands to you and your descendants, and I'll keep the oath I swore to your father Abraham.

I'll multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky, and I'll give them all these lands, and through your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed,

because Abraham listened to me and kept my requirements, my commands, my rules and my instructions.”

So Isaac stayed at Gerar.

When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, “She's my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “She's my wife.” He thought the men of the place might kill him over Rebekah, because she was good-looking.

When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac with his wife Rebekah, caressing her.

So Abimelech sent for Isaac. “She's really your wife,” he said. “Why did you say she's your sister?” And Isaac said, “Because I thought I might lose my life over her.”

And Abimelech said, “What's this you've done to us? One of the men could easily have slept with your wife, and you'd have brought guilt down on us.”

So Abimelech gave orders to all the people. “Anyone who touches this man or his wife will certainly be put to death.”

Isaac planted crops in that land, and that same year he reaped a hundredfold, because the Lord blessed him.

The man became well off, and his wealth kept growing until he was very well off indeed.

He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines were jealous of him.

So the Philistines filled in all the wells his father's servants had dug back in Abraham's time, and stopped them up with dirt.

And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Move away from us. You've become far too powerful for us.”

So Isaac moved away, camped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there.

And Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in his father Abraham's time, which the Philistines had filled in after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them.

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

But the herdsmen of Gerar argued with Isaac's herdsmen. “The water's ours,” they said. So he called the well Esek, because they argued with him.

Then they dug another well, and they argued over that one too, so he called it Sitnah.

He moved on from there and dug another well, and nobody argued over it. So he called it Rehoboth, and said, “Now the Lord has made room for us, and we'll do well in the land.”

From there he went up to Beersheba.

And that night the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Don't be afraid. I'm with you, and I'll bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.”

So he built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. He pitched his tent there, and his servants dug a well.

Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his personal adviser and Phicol the commander of his forces.

And Isaac said to them, “What have you come to me for, seeing you were hostile to me and sent me away?”

And they said, “We've seen clearly that the Lord is with you, so we said there ought to be an oath between us — between you and us. Let's make a treaty with you,

that you won't do us any harm, just as we didn't touch you and only did you good and sent you away in peace. And now you're blessed by the Lord.”

So Isaac put on a feast for them, and they ate and drank.

Early next morning they swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they left him in peace.

That same day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well they'd dug. “We've found water,” they said.

And he called it Shibah. That's why the town is called Beersheba to this day.

When Esau was forty he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite.

And they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.