Genesis — Chapter 17

Passage

And after he began to be ninety and nine years old, the Lord appeared to him: and said to him: I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and you: and I will multiply you exceedingly. Abram fell flat on his face. And God said to him: I am, and my covenant is with you, and you will be a father of many nations. Neither shall your name be called any more Abram: but you will be called Abraham: because I have made you a father of many nations. And I will make you increase exceedingly, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come out of you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you, and between your seed after you in their generations, by a perpetual covenant: to be a God to you, and to your seed after you. And I will give to you, and to your seed, the land of your sojournment, all the land of Chanaan, for a perpetual possession, and I will be their God. Again God said to Abraham: And you therefore will keep my covenant, and your seed after you in their generations. This is my covenant which you shall observe between me and you, and your seed after you: All the male-kind of you shall be circumcised. And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, that it may be for a sign of the covenant between me and you. An infant of eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every manchild in your generations: he that is born in the house, as well as the bought servant, shall be circumcised, and whoever is not of your stock: And my covenant shall be in your flesh for a perpetual covenant. The male whose flesh of his foreskin shall not be circumcised, that soul shall be destroyed out of his people: because he has broken my covenant. God said also to Abraham: Sarai your wife you will not call Sarai, but Sara. And I will bless her, and of her I will give you a son, whom I will bless, and he shall become nations, and kings of people shall spring from him. Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, saying in his heart: Shall a son, thinkest you, be born to him that is a hundred years old? and shall Sara that is ninety years old bring forth? And he said to God: O that Ismael may live before you. And God said to Abraham: Sara your wife shall bear you a son, and you will call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for a perpetual covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ismael I have also heard you. See, I will bless him, and increase, and multiply him exceedingly: he shall beget twelve chiefs, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sara shall bring forth to you at this time in the next year. And when he had left off speaking with him, God went up from Abraham. And Abraham took Ismael his son, and all that were born in his house: and all whom he had bought, every male among the men of his house: and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskin forthwith the very same day, as God had commanded him. Abraham was ninety and nine years old, when he circumcised the flesh of his foreskin. And Ismael his son was full thirteen years old at the time of his circumcision. The self-same day was Abraham circumcised and Ismael his son. And all the men of his house, as well they that were born in his house, as the bought servants and strangers, were circumcised with him.