Promises and Responses

Promises	Responses		Consequences
	Trusting	Distrusting
The LORD Chooses Abram
I will show you where to go (that is, I will lead you). I will bless you. I will make your descendants into a great nation. You will become famous. You will be a blessing to others. I will bless anyone who blesses you I will put a curse on anyone who puts a curse on you. Everyone on earth will be blessed because of you. I will give [Canaan] to your family forever.	[Abram] obeyed and left with his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions and slaves they had gotten while in Haran. Abram then built an altar [in Canaan] for the LORD.	[When famine struck,] Abram and his wife Sarai went to live in Egypt for a while. Abram asks Sarai to pretend to be his sister.	Because of Sarai, the LORD struck the king and everyone in his palace with terrible diseases. So the king told his men to let Abram and Sarai take their possessions and leave.
The LORD's Promise to Abram
I will protect you and reward you greatly. See if you can count the stars. That's how many descendants you will have.	Abram believed the LORD.	You have given me everything I could ask for, except children.	The LORD was pleased with him.
Hagar and Ishmael
[You will have many descendants.]		Sarai gives her slave, Hagar to Abram to conceive a child with. Sarai mistreats Hagar.	I will give you [Hagar] a son, who will be called Ishmael, because I have heard your cry for help. And later I will give you so many descendants that no one will be able to count them all.
The LORD Promises Abraham a Son
I'll come back about this time next year, and when I do, Sarah will already have a son.		[Sarah] laughed and said to herself, "Now that I am worn out and my husband is old, will I really know such happiness?"	God confronts Sarah’s mistrust and reiterates the promise.
Sarah Has a Son
[Sarah will have a son]. [I will protect you and reward you greatly]. I will make [Ishmael’s] descendants into a great nation.		Sarah asks Abraham to get rid of Hagar and Ishmael so that Ishmael will not inherit anything.	God protects Hagar and Ishmael and reiterates the promise.