Birth of Isaac Promised

18 Now the Lord appeared to Abraham by the terebinth trees of Mamre [in Hebron], while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. ² When he raised his eyes and looked up, behold, three men were standing [a little distance] from him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed down [with his face] to the ground, ³ and Abraham said, “My ^[a]lord, if now I have found favor in your sight, please do not pass by your servant [without stopping to visit]. ⁴ Please let a little water be brought [by one of my servants] and [you may] wash your feet, and recline and rest comfortably under the tree. ⁵ And I will bring a piece of bread to refresh and sustain ^[b]you; after that you may go on, since you have come to your servant.” And they replied, “Do as you have said.” ⁶ So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Quickly, get ready three ^[c]measures of fine meal, knead it and bake cakes.” ⁷ Abraham also ran to the herd and brought a calf, tender and choice, and he gave it to the servant [to butcher], and he hurried to prepare it. ⁸ Then he took ^[d]curds and milk and the calf which he had prepared, and set it before the men; and he stood beside them under the tree while they ate.

The Doom of Sodom

19 It was evening when the two angels came to Sodom. Lot was sitting at Sodom’s [^[a]city] gate. Seeing them, Lot got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. ² And he said, “See here, my lords, please turn aside and come into your servant’s house, and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may get up early and go on your way.” But they said, “No, we shall spend the night in the open plaza [of the city].” ³ However, Lot strongly urged them, so they turned aside and entered his house; and he prepared a feast for them [with wine], and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

Gideon Is Visited

¹¹ Now the ^[a]Angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, and his son Gideon was beating wheat in the wine press [instead of the threshing floor] to [hide it and] save it from the Midianites. ¹² And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O brave man.” ¹³ But Gideon said to him, “Please my lord, if the Lord is with us, then why has all this happened to us? And where are all His wondrous works which our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.” ¹⁴ The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this strength of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?” ¹⁵ But Gideon said to Him, “Please Lord, how am I to rescue Israel? Behold, my family is the least [significant] in Manasseh, and I am the youngest (smallest) in my father’s house.” ¹⁶ The Lord answered him, “I will certainly be with you, and you will strike down the Midianites as [if they were only] one man.” ¹⁷ Gideon replied to Him, “If I have found any favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speaks with me. ¹⁸ Please do not depart from here until I come back to You, and bring my offering and place it before You.” And He said, “I will wait until you return.”

¹⁹ Then Gideon went and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket and the broth in a pot, and he brought the food to Him under the oak (terebinth) and presented it. ²⁰ The Angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth [over them].” And he did so. ²¹ Then the Angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in His hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire flared up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the Angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. ²² When Gideon realized [without any doubt] that He was the Angel of the Lord, he declared, “^[b]Oh no, Lord God! For now I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face [and I am doomed]!” ²³ The Lord said to him, “Peace to you, do not be afraid; you shall not die.” ²⁴ Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and named it The Lord is Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah, of the Abiezrites.

⁶ Then the woman went and told her husband, saying, “A Man of God came to me and his appearance was like the appearance of the Angel of God, very awesome. I did not ask Him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name. ⁷ But He said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and now you shall not drink wine or [any other] intoxicating drink, nor eat anything [ceremonially] unclean, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.’”

⁸ Then Manoah pleaded with the Lord and said, “O Lord, please let the Man of God whom You sent come again to us and teach us what we are to do for the boy who is to be born.” ⁹ And God listened to the voice of Manoah; and the Angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field, but Manoah her husband was not with her. ¹⁰ So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, “Behold, the Man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” ¹¹ Then Manoah got up and followed his wife, and came to the Man and said to him, “Are you the Man who spoke to this woman?” He said, “I am.” ¹² And Manoah said, “Now when your words come true, what shall be the boy’s manner of life, and his vocation?” ¹³ The Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “The woman must pay attention to everything that I said to her. ¹⁴ She may not eat anything that comes from the vine nor drink wine or [any other] intoxicating drink, nor eat anything [ceremonially] unclean. She shall observe everything that I commanded her.”

¹⁵ Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, “Please let us detain you and let us prepare a young goat for you [to eat].” ¹⁶ The Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Though you detain me, I will not eat your food, but if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the Lord.” For Manoah did not know that he was the Angel of the Lord. ¹⁷ Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that when your words come true, we may honor you?” ¹⁸ But the Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful (miraculous)?”^{(A) 19} So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering and offered it on the rock to the Lord, and He performed miracles while Manoah and his wife looked on. ²⁰ For when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the Angel of the Lord ascended in the altar flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this they fell on their faces to the ground.