January 6: Genesis 18:1 – Genesis 21:7

The Lord Appears to Abraham – Genesis 18

• While Abraham sits at the door of his tent, three men arrive (God and two angels). Abraham has Sarah make flour cakes, has a young man prepare a young calf, and prepares curds and milk for the men. He stands by while they eat under a tree.
• The men ask Abraham where Sarah is, and Abraham tells them she is in the tent. They respond that they will return in about a year, and at that time he and Sarah will have a son. 
• Sarah is listening from inside the tent, and she laughs to herself because she and Abraham are so old.
• The Lord asks Abraham why Sarah laughed, and reminds Abraham that nothing is too hard for Him. Sarah is fearful and denies laughing, but God confirms that she did laugh.
• The three men leave, heading toward Sodom, and Abraham goes with them. God says that due to the great sinfulness of Sodom and Gomorrah, He will go and see the cities Himself.

Abraham Intercedes for Sodom

• Looking upon Sodom, Abraham asks God if he will sweep away the righteous of Sodom with the wicked. He asks that if there are fifty righteous within the city, would God spare them.
• God answers that if there are fifty righteous within the city, He will spare the entire city for their sake. From there, Abraham continues to question the Lord: What if there are forty-five righteous? What if there are forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten?
• God tells Abraham that for the sake of ten righteous, He will not destroy the city.
• The Lord goes away, and Abraham returns to his tent.

God Rescues Lot – Chapter 19

• The two men (the angels with God) reach Sodom, where Lot is sitting at the gate (the gate of the city was where the town elders met, so Lot, in his wealth, had become a ruling elder).
• Lot greets them with respect and offers to let them stay at his home for the night. They reply that they will stay in the town square, but he insists and they agree to stay with him. Lot prepares a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they eat.
• Before they go to bed for the night, all the men of Sodom surround the house, and ask Lot to bring the two men out, so they might "know them." Lot steps outside and asks them to take his two virgin daughters instead of the men.
• The Sodomite men refuse, trying to break the door down, and the two men bring Lot into the house, shut the door, and strike the men outside with blindness.
• The two men ask Lot if he has any family in Sodom, and tell him to get them because they are about to destroy the city. Lot goes to his two son-in-laws, who are to marry his daughters, but they don't believe him.
• When morning comes, the two men tell Lot to take his wife and daughters and leave the city. Lot lingers, and the men take his wife and daughters by the hands and take them outside the city. The men tell them not to look back or stop anywhere in the valley, but to head to the hills.
• Lot tells them if he escapes to the hills, disaster may overtake him, and he asks if he can escape to  a small city instead. The men agree, and they escape to the city of Zoar.

God Destroys Sodom

• After Lot and his family reach Zoar at sunrise, God rains down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah.
• Lot's wife looks back and turns to a pillar of salt.
• Abraham goes to the place where he had stood with the Lord and looks down upon Sodom and Gomorrah. God has remembered Abraham and sent Lot away to protect him.

Lot and His Daughters

• Lot is afraid to live in Zoar, so he takes his daughters and goes up into the hills to live.
• His daughters conspire to get Lot drunk and have sexual relations with him so they would have children. (Their husbands were dead in Sodom, and their mother had also died and they doubted their father would remarry again. If they died childless, no one would carry on their name.)
• The firstborn lies with their father that night after he is drunk, and the next night the younger daughter does the same. Both daughters become pregnant; the firstborn bears a son she names Moab (he becomes the father of the Moabites) and the younger bears a son she names Ben-ammi (he becomes the father of the Ammonites). This shameful act of incest results in the birth of two sons who would later greatly trouble Israel.

Abraham and Abimelech – Genesis 20

• Abraham moves to the territory between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourns in Gerar. 
• There he tells people that Sarah is his sister, and Abimelech, king of Gerar, sends for Sarah and takes her into his house. 
• God appears to Abimelech in a dream and warns him that Sarah is married. Abimelech points out that he didn't know this and that he hasn't touched Sarah. God agrees that Abimelech has shown integrity (and the He kept Abimelech from sinning against him), and tells Abimelech to return Sarah to Abraham.
• Abimelech confronts Abraham, and Abraham explains why they deceived him (they feared that since they were among people who didn't fear God, Abraham would be killed and Sarah taken). Abimelech tells Abraham he may dwell where he pleases and gives him a thousand pieces of silver.
• Abraham prays to God, and God heals Abimelech, his wife, and his female slaves so they again bear children (the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah). In this way, the people of Gerar learn about the Lord, just as the people in Egypt learned of God when a similar thing happened there.

The Birth of Isaac – Genesis 21:1–7

• Sarah conceives and bears a son whom they name Isaac. When he is eight days old, they circumcise Isaac.
• Sarah says that "God has made laughter for me. ... I have borne [Abraham] a son in his old age." (Gen. 21:6–7)

January 4: Genesis 11:1 – Genesis 14:24 & 1 Chronicles 1:24–27

The Tower of Babel – Genesis 11

• The whole earth has one language. The people journey east and find a plain in the land of Shinar (ancient Babylon, in Mesopotamia), where they settle. 
• Using baked bricks and mortar, the people set out to build a city, and a tower that reaches into the heavens. (They want to become as famous as the Nephilim were before the Great Flood, and make a name for themselves.)
• God "came down to see" (omniscience) what they were doing, and sees their potential to become as willfully sinful as people were before the Flood. He will not allow this to happen.
• God confuses their language, scattering them abroad. (This is the beginning of variation in language, culture, values, and clans—caused by human arrogance.) The scattering is God's third great judgment on the people (the first being the expulsion from Eden and the second being the Great Flood). 
• The tower is called Babel. In Hebrew, the word for confuse (in verb form) sounds similar to the name of the city.

Shem's Descendants – Genesis 11:10–26 & 1 Chronicles 1:24–27

• The genealogy of Shem, the progenitor of the Hebrew people, is given, from Shem to Terah, who was the father of Abram (later Abraham), Nahor, and Haran.

Terah's Descendants

• Terah's son Haran dies, leaving a son named Lot. Abram and Nahor take wives (Sarai and Milcah, respectively). Sarai is barren.
• Terah takes Abram, Lot, and Sarai, and they leave Ur of the Chaldeans and go to Canaan, to a place called Haran, where Terah dies.

Promises to Abram – Genesis 12

• God tells Abram to take his family to the land God will show him, and that He will make Abram a great nation.
• Abram obeys, leaving Haran with Sarai, Lot, and the people they had acquired in Haran, and traveled to Shechem, also in Canaan. There, God tells Abram that He will give this land (which belongs to the Canaanites) to Abram's descendants, and Abram builds an altar to the Lord.
• Abram then moves to the mountains east of Bethel and pitches his tent between Bethel and Ai, where he builds another altar and calls on the name of the Lord.
• Abram then journeys again, heading south.

Abram in Egypt

• There was a famine in the land, so Abram takes his family south to Egypt. 
• As the family is entering Egypt, Abram tells Sarai to tell anyone who asks, that she is his sister. He fears that because she is beautiful, if she tells people that she is his wife, the people will try to kill him. (Sarai is actually Abram's half-sister, as they shared the same father.)
• In Egypt, Sarai is taken by the Pharaoh's princes into the house of Pharaoh, where she becomes a wife of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh treats Abram well for Sarai's sake (he is given servants and livestock).
• God plagues Pharaoh and his household because of Sarai (the first example of the cursing and blessing element of God's promise, found in verses 2 and 3 of the chapter).
• Angry, Pharaoh sends Abram and Sarai away with all they own.

Abram Inherits Canaan – Genesis 13

• Abram and his family return to the place where he pitched his tent between Bethel and Ai. There, he calls upon the name of the Lord again.
• Lot also goes with them, and the land is not able to house all of them, as their possessions are so great that they can't live together. There is strife between the herdsmen of the Lot and the herdsmen of Abram, so the two men decide to separate so there will be no more problems between them. Lot chooses the land of Jordan, to the east (his choice of the more favorable land leads him into territory populated by the worst of the Canaanites—the men of Sodom), while Abram chooses the land of Canaan.
• Lot pitches his tent as far as Sodom, where the men are "exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord." (Gen. 13:13)
• The Lord tells Abram to look all around him, and that all the land Abram can see will be given to him and his descendants forever. (This is God's reaffirmation of His promise to Abram after Abram's lack of faith in Egypt and his separation from Lot.) He also tells Abram He will make his descendants as the dust of the earth (innumerable), and tells Abram to move about through his land (a symbolic act of taking possession).
• Abram moves his tent, dwelling by the terebinth trees of Mamre (in Hebron), where he builds another altar to the Lord.

Lot's Captivity and Rescue – Genesis 14

• War breaks out in Jordan, where Lot is living. Lot and his family, along with the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, are captured. An escapee flees to Abram and tells him what has happened.
• Abram arms his three hundred eighteen trained servants, and together they attack the city of Sodom in the night. Abram brings back all the goods, as well as Lot and his family and all their belongings.
• The king of Sodom meets Abram in the Valley of Shaveh after Abram's return from victory. 

Abram and Melchizedek

• Melchizedek, king of Salem (later Jerusalem) meets with Abram. (Melchizedek is a priest of the Most High God and worshiped the living God.) He then blesses Abram.
• The king of Sodom tells Abram to give him his people but to keep the goods. Abram refuses, saying he will not take anything that belongs to the king (this is his rebuke of Sodom and its king, which is in contrast to Lot, who moved into the wicked city), lest the king say that he made Abram rich.