Genesis 26 - Simple English

1There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that happened in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.

2The LORD appeared to him and said, "Do not go down into Egypt. Live in the land that I will tell you about."

3Stay in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your children I will give all these countries, and I will keep the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.

4I will make your children as many as the stars of heaven, and I will give your children all these countries. Through your children all the nations of the earth will be blessed,

5"because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws."

6So Isaac lived in Gerar.

7The men of the place asked him about his wife, and he said, "She is my sister." He was afraid to say, "She is my wife." He thought, "The men of the place might kill me because of Rebekah, for she is beautiful to look at."

8When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window. He saw, and there was Isaac playing lovingly with Rebekah his wife.

9Abimelech called Isaac and said, "Look, she is certainly your wife. How could you say, 'She is my sister'?" Isaac said to him, "Because I thought I might die because of her."

10Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us."

11So Abimelech gave an order to all his people. He said, "Whoever touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death."

12Then Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in the same year he reaped a hundred times as much. The LORD blessed him.

13The man became great. He kept growing richer until he became very great.

14He owned flocks and herds, and a great many servants. So the Philistines were jealous of him.

15All the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had blocked up and filled with earth.

16Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go away from us, for you are much stronger than we are."

17So Isaac left that place and set up his tent in the valley of Gerar, and lived there.

18Isaac dug again the wells of water that they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had blocked them up after Abraham died. He gave them the same names his father had given them.

19Isaac's servants dug in the valley, and there they found a well of fresh, running water.

20But the herdsmen of Gerar quarrelled with Isaac's herdsmen and said, "The water is ours." So he named the well Esek, because they quarrelled with him.

21They dug another well, and they quarrelled over that one too. So he named it Sitnah.

22He moved away from there and dug another well, and over that one they did not quarrel. So he named it Rehoboth, and he said, "Now the LORD has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land."

23From there he went up to Beersheba.

24That same night the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am the God of Abraham your father. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and give you many children for the sake of my servant Abraham."

25So he built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD, and he set up his tent there. There Isaac's servants dug a well.

26Then Abimelech came to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the commander of his army.

27Isaac said to them, "Why have you come to me, since you hate me and sent me away from you?"

28They said, "We saw clearly that the LORD was with you. So we said, 'Let there be an oath between us, between us and you. Let us make a covenant with you,"

29"that you will do us no harm, just as we did not touch you, and did nothing to you but good, and sent you away in peace.' You are now the blessed of the LORD."

30So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank.

31They got up early in the morning and swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them away, and they left him in peace.

32That same day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well they had dug. They said to him, "We have found water."

33He called it Shebah. That is why the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.

34Esau was forty years old when he married Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite.

35They brought grief of mind to Isaac and to Rebekah.