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17
God made an agreement with Abram
1 Later on, when Abram was 99 years old, God showed himself to Abram and said, “I am God. I have power over everything. I want you to live my way and always do the right thing. 2 If you do that, I will make an agreement with you, and I will give you a really big family. You see, you will have a son, and later on lots of people will be born into his family, and they will be a real big family.”
3 Abram got down on his knees and put his face near the ground, to show respect to God, and God said to him, 4 “I promise that I will do this for you. I will give you a big family. Lots of people will be born into your family, so that you will be the father of lots of nations. 5 So I am changing your name from Abram to Abraham.” (That name Abram means father that people respect, and that name Abraham means father of lots of people.) And God said, “Yes, I will make you the father of lots of nations.*Romans 4:17 6 I will give you a real big family later on, and they will split up into lots of nations. And some of your people will be the big bosses of those nations.
7 I am making this agreement with you, and with the people that will be born into your family later on. This agreement will last for ever. It will never end. I promise that I will be your God for ever.*Luke 1:55 8 You see, you are now living in this country called Canaan, but it doesn’t belong to you. But later on, I will give all this country to the people that will be born into your family. They will have this country for themselves for ever, and I will be their God.”*Acts 7:5
9 Then God said to Abraham, “You have to agree to this. You and everyone that will be born into your family later on, you mob have to always respect me and let me be your God. 10-11 This is what you have to do to show that we made this agreement together. You and every man in your camp has to have the young man operation. And all the men born into your family later on will have to have it too.*Acts 7:8; Romans 4:11 12-13 From now on, every baby boy in your camp has to have that young man operation 8 days after he is born. Every man in your family has to have that operation. And if you buy a man to work for you, he has to have that operation too. Every male person has to have that mark on his body. It will show that we made this agreement, you and me, and that this agreement will last for ever. 14 Any man that doesn’t have that operation will be breaking our agreement, and I will take him away from your family.”
God promised a son to Abraham and Sarah
15 Then God said to Abraham, “I am changing your wife’s name too. Don’t call her Sarai any more. Call her Sarah.” (Both of those names mean important woman.) 16 And God said, “I will do a good thing for her too. She will have a son, and you will be his father. Yes, I will do that good thing for her. Lots of people will be born into her son’s family, and they will split up into lots of nations. And some of those people will be the big bosses of those nations.”
17 Abraham got down on his knees again and put his face near the ground, and he laughed. He thought, “I am nearly 100 years old, and Sarah is nearly 90. We can’t have a baby. We are too old.” 18 So then Abraham said to God, “Look, I already have a son, Ishmael. I want you to be good to him, so that he will be that son you are talking about.”
19 God said, “No, not Ishmael. Listen, your wife Sarah will have a baby boy. He will be your son, and you will call him Isaac.” (That name Isaac means laugh.) And God said, “He will be the son I’m talking about. I will keep this agreement going with him. It will be the same for him, and for all the people that will be born into his family later on. This agreement will go on for ever.
20 And you asked me to do good things for Ishmael. Well, I listened to you, and I will be good to him too. He will have a big family, and later on, 12 big bosses will be in his family. I will make his mob into a great nation. 21 But my agreement will not be with Ishmael. You see, about this time next year, your wife Sarah will have a baby boy. He will be your son, and you will call him Isaac, and I will make the same agreement with him that I just made with you.”
22 After God said all that, he left Abraham.
23-27 Then, on that same day, Abraham did a young man operation on every man and every boy in his camp. All Abraham’s work-men had that operation. They were the work-men that Abraham bought, and the work-men that were born in his camp. And Abraham and his son Ishmael had that operation too. They all had that operation on the same day. Ishmael was 13 years old, and Abraham was 99 years old, when they had that young man operation.

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*17:5 Romans 4:17

*17:7 Luke 1:55

*17:8 Acts 7:5

*17:10-11 Acts 7:8; Romans 4:11

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