The Genesis of Ethics: Avram and Sarai on the Road

Genesis 11:27 Now these are the begettings of Terah:
Terah begot Avram, Nahor, and Haran;
and Haran begot Lot.
28 Haran died in the living-presence of Terah his father in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans.
29 Avram and Nahor took themselves wives;
the name of Avram’s wife was Sarai,
the name of Nahor’s wife was Milca—daughter of Haran, father of Milca and father of Yisca.
30 Now Sarai was barren, she had no child.
31 Terah took Avram his son and Lot son of Haran, his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, wife of Avram his son,
they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans, to go to the land of Canaan.
But when they had come as far as Harran, they settled there.
32 And the days of Terah were five years and two hundred years,
then Terah died, in Harran.

Lekh Lekha

Genesis 12:1 YHWH said to Avram:
Go-you-forth
from your land,
from your kindred,
from your father’s house,
to the land that I will let you see.
2 I will make a great nation of you
and will give-you-blessing
and will make your name great.
Be a blessing!
3 I will bless those who bless you,
he who curses you, I will damn.
All the clans of the soil will find blessing through you!
4 Avram went, as YHWH had spoken to him, and Lot went with him.
And Avram was five years and seventy years old when he went out of
Harran.
5 Avram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, all their property that they had gained, and the persons whom they had made-their-own in Harran,
and they went out to go to the land of Canaan.
When they came to the land of Canaan,
6 Avram passed through the land, as far as the Place of Shekhem, as far as the Oak of Moreh.
Now the Canaanite was then in the land.
7 YHWH was seen by Avram and said:
I give this land to your seed!
He built a slaughter-site there to YHWH who had been seen by him.
8 He moved on from there to the mountain-country, east of Bet-El,
and spread his tent, Bet-El toward the sea and Ai toward the east.
There he built a slaughter-site to YHWH
and called out the name of YHWH.
9 Then Avram journeyed on, continually journeying to the Negev.
10 Now there was a famine in the land,
and Avram went down to Egypt, to sojourn there,
for the famine was heavy in the land.
11 It was when he came near to Egypt that he said to Sarai his wife:
Now here, I know well that you are a woman fair to look at.
12 It will be, when the Egyptians see you and say: She is his wife,
that they will kill me, but you they will allow to live.
13 Pray say that you are my sister
so that it may go well with me on your account, that I myself may live
thanks to you.
14 It was when Avram came to Egypt, that the Egyptians saw how exceedingly fair the woman was;
15 when Pharaoh’s courtiers saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh,
and the woman was taken away into Pharaoh’s house.
16 It went well with Avram on her account,
sheep and oxen, donkeys, servants and maids, she-asses and camels,
became his.
17 But YHWH plagued Pharaoh with great plagues, and also his household, because of Sarai, Avram’s wife.
18 Pharaoh had Avram called, and said:
What is this that you have done to me!
Why did you not tell me that she is your wife?
19 Why did you say: She is my sister?
—So I took her for myself as a wife.
But now, here is your wife, take her and go!
20 So Pharaoh put men in charge of him, who escorted him and his wife
and all that was his.

Genesis 13:1 Avram traveled up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that was his, and Lot with him, to the Negev.
2 And Avram was exceedingly heavily laden with livestock, with
silver and with gold.

Translation: The Schocken Bible © Everett Fox 1995

The Schochen Bible
The Genesis of Ethics