Sarah Laughs

⁹ “Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.

“There, in the tent,” he answered.

¹⁰ The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!”^(A) Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him.

¹¹ Abraham and Sarah were old and getting on in years.^[a] Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.^{[b](B) 12} So she laughed to herself: “After I have become shriveled up and my lord is old, will I have delight?”^(C)

¹³ But the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’ ¹⁴ Is anything impossible for the Lord?^(D) At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.”

⁷ But they had no children^[a] because Elizabeth could not conceive,^[b] and both of them were well along in years.^[c]

⁸ When his division was on duty^(A) and he was serving as priest before God, ⁹ it happened that he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense.^{(B) 10} At the hour of incense the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. ¹¹ An angel of the Lord^(C) appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense. ¹² When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and overcome with fear.^{[d] 13} But the angel said to him: