against him. Then Hagar returned home and served her lady,
and soon after this she was delivered of Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six
years old when Ishmael was born.

When Abram was ninety-nine years, our Lord appeared to him and said:
Abram, lo! I am the Lord Almighty, walk thou before me and be perfect,
and I shall keep covenant between me and thee and shall multiply thy
seed greatly. And Abram fell down lowting low to the earth and thanked
him. Then our Lord said I AM, and my covenant I shall keep to thee, thou
shalt be father of much people. Thou shalt no more be called Abram, but
Abraham, for I have ordained thee father of much people. I shall make
thee to increase most abundantly; kings and princes shall come of thee,
and shall stablish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed in thy
generations. I shall give to thee and to thy seed after thee the land of
thy pilgrimage, all the land of Canaan, into their possession and I
shall be their God. Yet said God to Abraham: And thou shalt keep thy
covenant to me, and thine heirs after thee in their generations, and
this shall be the covenant that ye shall keep and thine heirs after
thee. Every child masculine that shall be born shall be circumcised when
he is eight days old. And see that the men in your generation be
circumcised, begin at thyself and thy children. And all that dwell in
thy kindred, who of you that shall not be circumcised shall be cast and
put out for ever from my people, because he obeyeth not my statute and
ordinance. And thy wife Sara shall be called no more Sara but she shall
be called Sarah, and I shall bless her, and shall give to thee a son of
her, whom I shall bless also. I shall him increase into nations, and
kings of peoples shall come of him. Abraham fell down on his face
toward the earth and laughed in his heart, saying: May it be that a
woman of ninety years may bear a child? I beseech thee, Lord, that
Ishmael may live before thee. Our Lord said to Abraham, Sarah shall
bring forth a son whom thou shalt name Isaac, and I shall keep my
covenant to him for evermore, and to his heirs after him. And I have
heard thy request for Ishmael also. I shall bless him and increase, and
shall multiply his seed into much people, twelve dukes shall come of
him. I shall keep my covenant to Isaac, whom Sarah shall bring forth the
next year.

After this on a time, as Abraham sat beside his house in the vale of
Mamre in the heat of the day, and as he lift up