Lech-Lecha

God calls Abram: leave your land, your kindred, and your father's house for a land you will be shown — with a promise of nationhood, blessing, and a great name, and that in him all families of the earth will be blessed. Abram goes, at seventy-five, with Sarai and Lot, and moves through Canaan building altars. Famine drives them to Egypt, where Sarai is taken into Pharaoh's house and released after plagues strike; they return with great wealth.

Abram and Lot part ways when their herds grow too large for the land to bear together — Lot chooses the plain of the Jordan near Sodom, and God renews the promise to Abram: all the land he sees, and offspring like the dust of the earth. When four kings defeat five and carry Lot off, Abram arms his household, rescues him, is blessed by Melchizedek king of Salem, and refuses the goods of Sodom's king.

In a covenant made between divided animal pieces, God tells Abram his offspring will be strangers and slaves four hundred years in a land not theirs, and then come out with great possessions. Sarai, childless, gives Abram her servant Hagar, who bears Ishmael. When Abram is ninety-nine God gives the covenant of circumcision, renames him Abraham and Sarai Sarah, and promises a son, Isaac, within the year. Abraham circumcises every male of his household that same day.