Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have caused me a lot of trouble! You’ve made the people living in the area, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, hate me. There are only a few of us. If they join forces against me and attack me, my family and I will be wiped out.”
Look to Abraham, your ancestor, and to Sarah, from whom you are descended. When I called Abraham, he was childless. I blessed him and gave him many descendants.
“Yet, God didn’t give Abraham anything in this land to call his own, not even a place to rest his feet. But God promised to give this land to him and to his descendants, even though Abraham didn’t have a child.
You will make this formal statement in the presence of the Lord your God: “My ancestors were wandering Arameans. There were only a few of them when they went to Egypt and lived as foreigners. But then they became a great, powerful, and large nation.
Abraham was as good as dead. Yet, from this man came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the grains of sand on the seashore.
Faith led Abraham to live as a foreigner in the country that God had promised him. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who received the same promise from God.