1 There was a famine in the land, besides the earlier famine in Abraham’s days. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines at Gerar. 2 The LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land I will tell you about. 3 Stay in this land as a foreigner, and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and your offspring I will give all these lands. I will fulfill the oath I swore to your father Abraham. 4 I will multiply your offspring like the stars of heaven and give all these lands to your offspring. In your offspring all the nations of the earth will invoke blessings for themselves, 5 because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my instructions.” 6 So Isaac lived in Gerar. 7 When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister.” He was afraid to say, “She is my wife,” thinking, “The men of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah,” because she was beautiful. 8 When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out through a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. 9 Abimelech called Isaac and said, “Surely she is your wife! How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac said to him, “Because I thought I might die on account of her.” 10 Abimelech said, “What have you done to us? One of the people might easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” 11 So Abimelech commanded all the people, “Anyone who touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death.” 12 Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold that year. The LORD blessed him, 13 and the man grew rich and kept growing richer until he became very wealthy. 14 He had flocks and herds and many servants, and the Philistines envied him. 15 The Philistines had stopped up and filled with earth all the wells his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham. 16 Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you have become much more powerful than we are.” 17 So Isaac went away from there, camped in the valley of Gerar, and lived there. 18 Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and that the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death. He gave them the same names his father had given them. 19 Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found a well of spring water there. 20 The herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” He named the well Esek because they quarreled with him. 21 They dug another well, and they quarreled over it too, so he named it Sitnah. 22 He moved on from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Rehoboth and said, “Now the LORD has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.” 23 From there he went up to Beersheba. 24 The LORD appeared to him that night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your offspring for the sake of my servant Abraham.” 25 He built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD. He pitched his tent there, and there Isaac’s servants dug a well. 26 Abimelech came to him from Gerar, along with Ahuzzath his friend and Phicol the commander of his army. 27 Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, since you hated me and sent me away from you?” 28 They said, “We have clearly seen that the LORD has been with you, so we said, ‘Let there be an oath between us, between us and you,’ and let us make a covenant with you, 29 that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done you only good and sent you away in peace. Now you are blessed by the LORD.” 30 So he prepared a feast for them, and they ate and drank. 31 They rose early in the morning and swore an oath to one another. Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. 32 That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. They said to him, “We have found water.” 33 He named it Shibah. That is why the city is called Beersheba to this day.

34 When Esau was forty years old, he took as wives Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite. 35 They were a source of bitterness to Isaac and Rebekah.