¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old Yahweh appeared to him and said, 'I am El Shaddai. Live in my presence, be perfect,

² and I shall grant a covenant between myself and you, and make you very numerous.'

³ And Abram bowed to the ground. God spoke to him as follows,

⁴ 'For my part, this is my covenant with you: you will become the father of many nations.

⁵ And you are no longer to be called Abram; your name is to be Abraham, for I am making you father of many nations.

⁶ I shall make you exceedingly fertile. I shall make you into nations, and your issue will be kings.

⁷ And I shall maintain my covenant between myself and you, and your descendants after you, generation after generation, as a covenant in perpetuity, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

⁸ And to you and to your descendants after you, I shall give the country where you are now immigrants, the entire land of Canaan, to own in perpetuity. And I shall be their God.'

⁹ God further said to Abraham, 'You for your part must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you, generation after generation.

¹⁰ This is my covenant which you must keep between myself and you, and your descendants after you: every one of your males must be circumcised.

¹¹ You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that will be the sign of the covenant between myself and you.

¹² As soon as he is eight days old, every one of your males, generation after generation, must be circumcised, including slaves born within the household or bought from a foreigner not of your descent.

¹³ Whether born within the household or bought, they must be circumcised. My covenant must be marked in your flesh as a covenant in perpetuity.

¹⁴ The uncircumcised male, whose foreskin has not been circumcised -- that person must be cut off from his people: he has broken my covenant.'

¹⁵ Furthermore God said to Abraham, 'As regards your wife Sarai, you must not call her Sarai, but Sarah.

¹⁶ I shall bless her and moreover give you a son by her. I shall bless her and she will become nations: kings of peoples will issue from her.'

¹⁷ Abraham bowed to the ground, and he laughed, thinking to himself, 'Is a child to be born to a man one hundred years old, and will Sarah have a child at the age of ninety?'

¹⁸ Abraham said to God, 'May Ishmael live in your presence! That will be enough!'

¹⁹ But God replied, 'Yes, your wife Sarah will bear you a son whom you must name Isaac. And I shall maintain my covenant with him, a covenant in perpetuity, to be his God and the God of his descendants after him.

²⁰ For Ishmael too I grant you your request. I hereby bless him and will make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous. He will be the father of twelve princes, and I shall make him into a great nation.

²¹ But my covenant I shall maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear you at this time next year.'

²² When he had finished speaking to Abraham, God went up from him.

²³ Then Abraham took his son Ishmael, all the slaves born in his household or whom he had bought, in short all the males among the people of Abraham's household, and circumcised their foreskins that same day, as God had said to him.

²⁴ Abraham was ninety-nine years old when his foreskin was circumcised.

²⁵ Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when his foreskin was circumcised.

²⁶ Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised on the very same day,

²⁷ and all the men of his household, those born in the household and those bought from foreigners, were circumcised with him.

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The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

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