1 So Abram left Egypt and went back to the Negev, with his wife
and all his stuff, and Lot went with him.
2 Abram was super rich now
in livestock and in silver and gold.
3 From the Negev he wandered
around a bit until he came to Bethel, then to the place between Bethel and Ai
where he’d stayed earlier, 4 and where he’d first built an altar. From there he called out God’s name.
5 Now Lot, who was traveling with Abram, also had lots of flocks and herds and tents and stuff.
6 But the land could not support them both at the same time; they literally had too much stuff to be able to stay together.
7 And Abram’s and Lot’s herders started arguing and shit. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living around there at that time.
8 So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not fight, or let our herders fight. We’re close relatives, after all.
9 Isn’t there a whole bunch of land right in front of us? Let’s split up; you get first pick. If you wanna go left, I’ll go right, and if you wanna go right, I’ll go left.”
10 Lot looked around and saw that the plains near the Jordan river off toward Zoar were lush and green, like God’s garden, or like Egypt. (God hadn’t destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah yet.)
11 So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and went east. Abram went the other way.
12 Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.
13 Now the people of Sodom were all total assholes and were sinning like crazy against God.
14 Meanwhile, once Lot was gone, God said to Abram, “Take a look around from where you are in all directions.
15 All the land you can see I’m going to give to you and your descendants forever.
16 I’ll make sure you have so many descendants that they’ll be as hard to count as all the specks of dust in the world.
17 Go, walk around in every direction for as long as you want; I’m giving it all to you.”
18 So Abram moved his camp to Hebron near the oak grove of Mamre. He built another altar for God there.
