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JANUARY 7
Because it was God’s purpose to fill the earth with custodians, He responded to the people’s
prideful rebellion.They had chosen to settle; He forced them to scatter.Their cooperation and self-
reliance had been based on their shared language.Instead of using all their resources to obey God,
they misused them for disobedience. God chose to complicate communication by multiplying the
languages. The location where this confusion took place became known as Babel (related to a
Hebrew word meaning “to confuse”).Later it became Babylon,the constant enemy of God’s people,
and throughout Scripture the capital of human rebellion against God (Rev. 16:19; 17:5).

January 7 Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan,
and Lot journeyed east. And they separated
from each other. Abram dwelt in the land of
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Genesis 13:1–14:24 Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain
and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom.
Then Abram went up from Egypt, he and 13 But the men of Sodom were exceedingly
13 his wife and all that he had, and Lot with wicked and sinful against the LORD.
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him, to the South. Abram was very rich in 14 And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had
livestock, in silver, and in gold. And he went separated from him: “Lift your eyes now and
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on his journey from the South as far as Bethel, look from the place where you are—north-
to the place where his tent had been at the ward, southward, eastward, and westward; for
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beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the all the land which you see I give to you and
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place of the altar which he had made there at your descendants forever. And I will make
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first. And there Abram called on the name of your descendants as the dust of the earth; so
the LORD. that if a man could number the dust of the
5 Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks earth, then your descendants also could be
and herds and tents. Now the land was not numbered. Arise, walk in the land through
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able to support them, that they might dwell its length and its width, for I give it to you.”
together, for their possessions were so great 18 Then Abram moved his tent, and went and
that they could not dwell together. And there dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre, which
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was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s are in Hebron, and built an altar there to the
livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. LORD.
The Canaanites and the Perizzites then dwelt And it came to pass in the days of
in the land. 14 Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of
8 So Abram said to Lot, “Please let there be Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal
no strife between you and me, and between king of nations, that they made war with Bera
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my herdsmen and your herdsmen; for we are king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah,
brethren. Is not the whole land before you? Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of
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Please separate from me. If you take the left, Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar).
then I will go to the right; or, if you go to the 3 All these joined together in the Valley of
right, then I will go to the left.” Siddim (that is, the Salt Sea). Twelve years
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And Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thir-
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of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere teenth year they rebelled.
(before the LORD destroyed Sodom and 5 In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer and
Gomorrah) like the garden of the LORD, like the kings that were with him came and
the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar. Then attacked the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim,
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the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh
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Kiriathaim, and the Horites in their mountain
of Seir, as far as El Paran, which is by the
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wilderness. Then they turned back and came
13:8 we are brethren. Abram’s whole reac-
tion in resolving the strife between the two to En Mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and attacked
households and their personnel portrayed a all the country of the Amalekites, and also the
different Abram than seen in Egypt—one Amorites who dwelt in Hazezon Tamar.
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whose attitude was not self-centered. Waving And the king of Sodom, the king of
his rights to seniority,he gave the choice to his Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of
nephew, Lot. Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar)
went out and joined together in battle in the
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