¹ Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us; consider, and see our reproach.

² Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.

³ We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.

⁴ Our water have we to drink for money, our wood cometh unto us for a price.

⁵ Our pursuers are on our necks: we are weary, we have no rest.

⁶ We have given the hand to Egypt, [and] to Asshur, to be satisfied with bread.

⁷ Our fathers have sinned, [and] they are not; and we bear their iniquities.

⁸ Bondmen rule over us: there is no deliverer out of their hand.

⁹ We have to get our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.

¹⁰ Our skin gloweth like an oven, because of the burning heat of the famine.

¹¹ They have ravished the women in Zion, the maids in the cities of Judah.

¹² Princes were hanged up by their hand; the faces of elders were not honoured.

¹³ The young men have borne the mill, and the youths have stumbled under the wood.

¹⁴ The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their music.

¹⁵ The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

¹⁶ The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, for we have sinned!

¹⁷ For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes have grown dim,

¹⁸ Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: foxes walk over it.

¹⁹ Thou, Jehovah, dwellest for ever; thy throne is from generation to generation.

²⁰ Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, dost thou forsake us so long time?

²¹ Turn thou us unto thee, Jehovah, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.

²² Or is it that thou hast utterly rejected us? Wouldest thou be exceeding wroth against us?

¹ There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.

² Yahweh appeared to him, and said, "Don't go down into Egypt. Live in the land I will tell you about.

³ Live in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you. For to you, and to your seed, I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.

⁴ I will multiply your seed as the stars of the sky, and will give to your seed all these lands. In your seed will all the nations of the earth be blessed,

⁵ because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my requirements, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws."

⁶ Isaac lived in Gerar.

⁷ The men of the place asked him about his wife. He said, "She is my sister," for he was afraid to say, "My wife," lest, he thought, "the men of the place might kill me for Rebekah, because she is beautiful to look at."

⁸ It happened, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was caressing Rebekah, his wife.

⁹ Abimelech called Isaac, and said, "Behold, surely she is your wife. Why did you say, 'She is my sister?'" Isaac said to him, "Because I said, 'Lest I die because of her.'"

¹⁰ Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us!"

¹¹ Abimelech commanded all the people, saying, "He who touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death."

¹² Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year one hundred times what he planted. Yahweh blessed him.

¹³ The man grew great, and grew more and more until he became very great.

¹⁴ He had possessions of flocks, possessions of herds, and a great household. The Philistines envied him.

¹⁵ Now all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped, and filled with earth.

¹⁶ Abimelech said to Isaac, "Go from us, for you are much mightier than we."

¹⁷ Isaac departed from there, encamped in the valley of Gerar, and lived there.

¹⁸ Isaac dug again the wells of water, which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father. For the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham. He called their names after the names by which his father had called them.

¹⁹ Isaac's servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.

²⁰ The herdsmen of Gerar argued with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, "The water is ours." He called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him.

²¹ They dug another well, and they argued over that, also. He called its name Sitnah.

²² He left that place, and dug another well. They didn't argue over that one. He called it Rehoboth. He said, "For now Yahweh has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land."

²³ He went up from there to Beersheba.

²⁴ Yahweh appeared to him the same night, and said, "I am the God of Abraham your father. Don't be afraid, for I am with you, and will bless you, and multiply your seed for my servant Abraham's sake."