14
Abram saved Lot
1-10 In that country there were 2 groups of kings. In the first group there were 4 kings and they worked together. And there were 5 kings in the second group and they worked together. Every king had their own army of fighting men.
King Kedor-lay-omer was the boss over all the kings in both groups and he lived in a place called Elam. Here are the names of the other 3 kings in the first group, and where they lived,
King Amrafel of Babylonia,
King Arioch of Ellasar, and
King Tidal of Goy-im.
Here is a list of the 2nd group of kings and where they lived,
King Bera of Sodom,
King Birsha of Gomorrah,
King Shinab of Admah,
King Shem-eber of Zeboy-im, and the
King of Bela. Zoar is the other name for Bela.
King Kedor-lay-omer was the boss over all the kings for 12 years. Then, at the end of the 12 years, the group of 5 kings turned against King Kedor-lay-omer.
King Kedor-lay-omer and the other 3 kings in his group got really upset about that and a year later they went down to fight the group of 5 kings. On the way they stopped to fight with some other people groups.
This is a list of those people and where they lived.
The Refaites in Ash-ter-oth Karnay-im,
the Zuzites in Ham,
the Emites in Shar-vay Kiriath-ay-im,
and the Hoorites in the hill country of Edom.
King Kedor-lay-omer's men went on fighting those people all the way to a place called El-Paran, near the dry country.
King Kedor-lay-omer and his group were the winners over all these people and they went back to the town of En-Mishpat, the other name for that town was Kadesh.
They took all the land that belonged to the Amal-kite (Amalekite) people. And then they had a fight with the Amorite people who were living in Hazezon-Tamar. King Kedor-lay-omer and his group were the winners.
When all those fights were finished, they marched to the Dead Sea that is in the plain country called the Valley of Siddim. The armies of the 5 kings that had turned away from King Kedor-lay-omer were waiting for him and the other 3 kings and their armies.
Both groups of armies lined up and faced each other ready to fight. It was 4 kings and their armies against 5 kings and their armies.
Kedor-lay-omer and his group of 3 kings were the winners over the 5 kings and their armies.
In that plain country called the Valley of Siddim there were a lot of holes in the ground full of sticky black stuff called tar. When the fight was finished, the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and their armies ran away. Some of the men fell into those tar pits and the rest of the men ran away up into the hills.
11 King Kedor-lay-omer and his soldiers went to Sodom and Gomorrah and grabbed all the people that lived there. Kedor-lay-omer's men took everything the people owned, even their food, and then they started to go back to their own country.
12 Lot and his family were living in Sodom at that time, and so the soldiers grabbed them too and took all their things.
Abram saved Lot and everything that was stolen
13-14 A man got away from the fight and ran to tell Abram what had happened to Lot. At that time, Abram was living near the Great Trees that belonged to a man named Mamre. Abram, the Hebrew man, was good friends with Mamre and his 2 brothers named Eshcol and Aner. They belonged to a group of people named Amorites.
Abram, Mamre and his brothers were from different tribes but they had promised to look after each other.
Abram had 318 fighting men in his camp. These men had lived with Abram all their lives. So Abram and his men joined up with the 3 Amorite brothers and their fighting men. Together they chased King Kedor-lay-omer and the 3 other kings all the way north to a place called Dan.
15 That night Abram split up all the men with him into groups to fight King Kedor-lay-omer and the other 3 kings. Abram and all his men won that fight and they chased the kings and their men all the way to a place called Hobah that is north of a town called Damascus.
16 So Abram saved Lot, and he saved the women and all the other people that had been taken from Sodom and Gomorrah. Abram took back all the things the kings had stolen from Lot and all the things that were stolen from the people that lived in Sodom and Gomorrah.
Abram met Mel-kiz-edek the king of Salem
17 Abram and all his fighting men started to go back home after they beat Kedor-lay-omer and the other kings.
The king of Sodom went out to meet them when they got to the Valley of Shevah, the low country between the hills. That low country was called the King's Valley.
18-19 In that country there was a man named Mel-kiz-edek who was the king of a town called Salem. And he was the people's ceremony man for the One True God. And like the king of Sodom, Mel-kiz-edek went out to meet Abram. Mel-kiz-edek gave Abram and all the fighting men some bread and wine and he blessed Abram.
This is the way Mel-kiz-edek blessed Abram.
Mel-kiz-edek prayed and said,
“God, you are more powerful than any other god.
You are the one who made heaven and earth.
And I ask you to do good things for Abram and to make him strong.
20 God, I want to thank you and tell everyone how great you are.
You are the one who helped Abram to be the winner over his enemies.”
When Mel-kiz-edek finished saying this, Abram got all the things that the kings had stolen from the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and split them up into 10 heaps. He gave one of those heaps to Mel-kiz-edek.+
21 The king of Sodom said to Abram, “I only want my people back. You can keep everything else.”
22-23 But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I tell you and I make a strong promise to God, the God who made heaven and the earth, I will not take anything that belongs to you. I will not even take a piece of string or a shoelace that belongs to you. I do not want you to say to anybody, ‘I made Abram rich. I gave him everything.’ 24 The only thing my men and I will keep is the food we ate. Listen to me king of Sodom, I did not save your people and your things by myself. These Amorite men named Aner, Eshcol and Mamre helped me, and so you can give them their share of the things we took back from the 4 kings.”
+ 14:20 Psalms 110:4; Hebrews 5:6,10; 6:20; 7:1,10,11,15,17