Vayera

Three visitors come to Abraham's tent at Mamre; he runs to feed them, and they announce that Sarah will have a son within the year. Sarah, listening at the tent flap, laughs. As the men rise toward Sodom, God tells Abraham what is about to happen, and Abraham pleads for the city — from fifty righteous down to ten.

Two angels reach Sodom, where Lot takes them in and the men of the city surround the house. Lot and his daughters are pulled out before fire overturns Sodom and Gomorrah; Lot's wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt. In a cave afterward, Lot's daughters bear sons who become Moab and Ammon. At Gerar, Abraham again presents Sarah as his sister, and King Abimelech is warned by God in a dream and restores her.

Isaac is born to the aged Sarah, as promised, and is circumcised on the eighth day. At Sarah's insistence Hagar and Ishmael are sent away; near death in the wilderness, they are saved when God opens Hagar's eyes to a well, and Ishmael grows up with a promise of his own. After a covenant with Abimelech at Beersheba, God tests Abraham: offer up Isaac on a mountain in Moriah. Abraham binds his son upon the altar, and the knife is stayed by a voice from heaven; a ram caught in a thicket is offered instead, and the promise of blessing and offspring is confirmed by oath.