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Genesis 12

1Yahweh said to Abram, “Go from your land, from your kindred, and from your father's house to the land I will show you. 2I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. Be a blessing! 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who treats you with contempt I will curse. All the clans of the ground will be blessed through you.” 4Abram went as Yahweh had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. 5Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother's son, all the possessions they had acquired, and the people they had acquired in Haran. They set out for the land of Canaan and came to the land of Canaan.

6Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. The Canaanites were then in the land. 7Yahweh appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” He built an altar there to Yahweh, who had appeared to him. 8From there he moved to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. He built an altar there to Yahweh and called on Yahweh's name. 9Abram traveled on, moving by stages toward the Negev.

10There was a famine in the land. Abram went down to Egypt to reside there as a foreigner, because the famine was severe in the land. 11As he drew near to entering Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “Please listen. I know you are a beautiful woman. 12When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife,’ and kill me, but keep you alive. 13Please say that you are my sister, so that it will go well with me because of you, and my life will be spared on your account.” 14When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15Pharaoh's officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. 16He treated Abram well because of her, and Abram had flocks, herds, male donkeys, male slaves, female slaves, female donkeys, and camels.

17Yahweh struck Pharaoh and his household with great afflictions because of Sarai, Abram's wife. 18Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me she was your wife? 19Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her as my wife? Now, here is your wife. Take her and go!” 20Pharaoh gave men orders about him, and they sent him away with his wife and everything he had.

Translation notes 4

12:1–3 — Blessing. Verse 2 ends with an imperative, “Be a blessing,” though a resulting promise, “you will be a blessing,” is possible. Verse 3 distinguishes treating Abram lightly or contemptuously from the stronger divine curse. The final verb is read as a passive blessing through Abram; “will bless themselves by you,” using him as a model in a blessing formula, is a serious alternative.

12:5, 16 — Acquired people; slaves. The people acquired in Haran belong to the household; the clause does not itself distinguish every person's status or describe them as religious converts. Verse 16 expressly includes male and female slaves among Abram's possessions. Their presence and Sarai's vulnerability are not recast as voluntary employment or mutual arrangements.

12:6–9 — Offspring; places. “Offspring” translates the collective word for seed without specifying a single descendant. The oak or great tree of Moreh marks a site, with exact species uncertain. Negev names the southern region, not merely the abstract direction south.

12:11–20 — Sister claim. Abram's fear and strategy are his stated reasoning. Pharaoh's taking Sarai as a wife is retained, as is the affliction of his household. The chapter supplies neither an account of intercourse nor the explanation about half-siblings given later in chapter 20; those details are not imported.