1 When Abram was 99 years old, God visited him and said, “I am God Most Powerful. I want you to live my way and do what I say is right.
2 We will make a strong promise to each other, and I will give you a really big family.”
3 Abram bowed down with his face on the ground and God said to him,
4 “This is my side of the promise. You are going to be the father of many nations. A lot of people are going to come from you.
5 And so, I am going to change your name. You are named Abram, which means Respected Father, but I will change your name to Abraham. Abraham means Father of Many Nations.
6 Yes, I will give you a very big family and later on it will split into different nations. Some of your family will be the kings of those nations.
7 I will make this promise with you and all the family that comes from you, and this promise will never end. I will be your God and I will be the God of all your family that comes from you.
8 You Abraham will still live like a stranger in this country called Canaan, but later on, I will give this country to the families that come from you. They will have this country for themselves forever and I will be their God.”
11 You all have to have that ceremony to show that we have made this promise together.
14 Any man or boy that does not have that ceremony mark has broken our promise and will be sent away from his tribe.”
15 Then God said to Abraham, “I am going to change your wife's name too. Her name is Sarai, but now you must name her Sarah.
16 I will do a good thing for her and together you will have a son. Yes, I will do this good thing for her so that she will be called the Mother of Many Nations, and kings will come from her.”
17 Abraham bowed down with his face on the ground again and laughed. He said to himself, “I am nearly 100 years old and Sarah is 90, how can we have a baby? We are too old.”
18 And so Abraham said to God, “Might be, my son Ishmael can be the son you promised me.”
19 But God said to Abraham, “Listen to me. What I say is true, Sarah will have a baby boy, and you will name him Isaac. He will be the one that gets all the promises I made to you. The promise I made with you, will be the same for him and for all the family that comes from him. And again I tell you, that promise will last forever.
20 Abraham, you asked me about Ishmael. I will do good things for him too. I will make a way for him to have a really big family and 12 leaders will come from that family. In that way Ishmael's family will become a great nation.
21 But I tell you, Sarah will have a baby boy about this time next year and when he is grown up, I will make the same promise with Isaac that I just made with you.”
22 God said all this, and then he left Abraham.