20
Abraham tricked Abimelek
1 Later on, Abraham moved his camp south to the dry country called The Negev and camped between the 2 towns called Kadesh and Shur in a place called Gerar. 2 Abimelek, the king of Gerar heard about Sarah, so he sent someone to get her. He wanted Sarah to be his wife. And it was there that Abraham again said, “Sarah is my sister.”+
3 God was not happy with Abimelek's plan. And so one night God spoke to Abimelek in a dream and said, “You are going to die. You have taken Sarah to be your wife. She is already married to Abraham.”
4-5 At that time, Abimelek had not touched Sarah or gone to bed with her and so he said to the Lord, “But Lord! Abraham said that Sarah was his sister, and she said that Abraham was her brother. I did not know that I was doing something wrong. I thought she was not married. Would you kill me and all my people who have done nothing wrong?”
6 God answered him, “Yes I know that you did nothing wrong. You did not know that Sarah was a married woman. That is why I stopped you from doing the wrong thing with her. 7 Give Sarah back to Abraham. He is my special man and he will pray for you so that you do not die. But I tell you, if you do not give her back to Abraham, I will kill you and everyone who lives with you.”
8 So early the next day, Abimelek called a meeting for all his important workers. He told them everything that God had said and they were all very frightened. 9 Then Abimelek sent someone to get Abraham to come to the meeting. Abimelek said to Abraham, “What have you done! And what have I done to you so that you pay us back with this trouble? You have done the wrong thing to me and my people. 10 What were you thinking? Why did you tell everyone that Sarah was your sister?”
11 Then Abraham answered and said, “I didn't think anyone here respected God, and I was frightened that you would kill me so that you could have Sarah as your wife. 12 But it is true. Sarah is my wife and she is my sister. We have the same father but different mothers. In our culture, we are allowed to marry our half-sisters and so that is what I did. 13 When God told me to leave my father's country, we moved from place to place. I was frightened for myself and so I said to her, ‘If you love me you have to tell everyone that you are my sister. Then I will be safe.’ ”
14 Abimelek did what God told him to do. He gave Sarah back to Abraham, and gave him some sheep and cattle as well as men and women workers as a present. 15 Abimelek said to Abraham, “Friend, look at all my country. You can live anywhere you like.” 16 Then Abimelek said to Sarah, “I gave your brother Abraham a lot of silver in front of everyone, to show that you did nothing wrong.”
17-18 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God made Abimelek strong again. And he made Abimelek's wife and all the women who lived in his house better so that they could have babies again.+ You see God had stopped all the women from having babies when Abimelek tried to marry Sarah.
+ 20:2 Genesis 12:11-13 + 20:17-18 Genesis 12:17