Genesis 13

₁Abram and Sarai took all the sheep and the things that they had and they went from the land of Egypt to the south of the land of Canaan. Lot went with them.

₂Abram was very rich. He had a lot of cattle, sheep and goats and he also had a lot of silver and gold. ₃He moved out of the Negev from one place to another place and he came to the town of Bethel. He went to the same place between Bethel and Ai where he had put up his tents before.

₄The first time that Abram had been there, he had built an altar. Now he prayed to the Lord at the altar.

₅Lot was with Abram and Lot also had sheep, goats, cattle and tents. ₆There was not enough grass and food for all their animals, because they had too many animals, so they could not stay together. ₇Then the shepherds of Abram and Lot started to fight. At that time the people of the land of Canaan and Perizz were still living in the land.

₈Abram said to Lot: ‘We are family. We must not fight and the people who work for us must not fight with each other. ₉This land is big enough. It will be better if we separate. If you go to the left, then I will go to the right. If you go to the right, then I will go to the left. You can choose.’

₁₀Lot looked and he saw that there was lots of water near the town of Zoar in the southern Jordan Valley. It looked beautiful, like the garden of the Lord. It was also beautiful like the gardens in the land of Egypt. This happened before the Lord destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. ₁₁Lot looked at the valley and he chose to stay in the Jordan Valley. Then he started moving to the east and he went away from Abram.

₁₂Abram stayed in the land of Canaan but Lot took his sheep near to the towns of the valley and he put up his tents near the city of Sodom. ₁₃In Sodom the people did very bad things and they sinned a lot against the Lord.

₁₄After Abram and Lot had separated, the Lord said to Abram: ‘You must look around you, to the north, to the south, to the east and to the west. ₁₅I will give you and your family all the land that you can see. This land will be your land and your family's land forever. ₁₆I will give you lots of descendants, so many that no one will know how many there are. There will be as many as the grains of sand on earth. ₁₇You must now walk through the whole land and look at it because I am going to give this land to you.’

₁₈Then Abram took his tents and he went to stay near the big trees of Mamre near the city of Hebron, where he built an altar to worship the Lord.