Chapter 26

  And 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.  

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  And the LORD appeared to him, and said, Go not down into Egypt: dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of.  

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  Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee: for to thee, and to thy seed I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham thy father;  

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  And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give to thy seed all these countries: and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed:  

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  Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.  

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  And Isaac dwelt in Gerar:  

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  And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister: for he feared to say, She is my wife; lest, said he, the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon.  

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  And it came to pass when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife.  

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  And Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, surely she is thy wife: and how saidst thou, She is my sister? and Isaac said to him, Because I said, Lest I should die on her account.  

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  And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done to us? one of the people might lightly have lain with thy wife, and thou wouldst have brought guiltiness upon us.  

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  And Abimelech charged all his people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.  

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  Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year a hundred-fold: and the LORD blessed him:  

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  And the man became great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great:  

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  For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and very many servants: And the Philistines envied him.  

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  For all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth.  

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  And Abimelech said to Isaac, Go from us: for thou art much mightier than we.  

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  And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there.  

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  And Isaac digged again the wells of water which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham: and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.  

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  And Isaac's servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.  

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  And the herdmen of Gerar contended with Isaac's herdmen, saying, The water is ours: and he called the name of the well Esek; because they strove with him.  

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  And they digged another well, and contended for that also: and he called the name of it Sitnah.  

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  And he removed from thence, and digged another well; and for that they did not contend: and he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said, For now the LORD hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.  

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  And he went up from thence to Beer-sheba.  

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  And the LORD appeared to him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake.  

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  And he built an altar there, and called upon the name of the LORD, and pitched his tent there: and there Isaac's servants digged a well.  

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  Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain of his army.  

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  And Isaac said to them, Why come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you?  

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  And they said, We saw certainly that the LORD was with thee: and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee;  

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  That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done to thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace: thou art now the blessed of the LORD.  

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

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  And they rose betimes in the morning, and swore one to another: and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.  

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  And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's servants came and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said to him, We have found water.  

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  And he called it Shebah: therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba to this day.  

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  And Esau was forty years old when he took for a wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite:  

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  Who were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah.  

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