1. Some years later God decided to test Abraham, so he spoke to him.Abraham answered, “Here I am, Lord.”
2. The Lord said, “Go and get Isaac, your only son, the one you dearly love! Take him to the land of Moriah, and I will show you a mountain where you must sacrifice him to me on the fires of an altar.”
3. So Abraham got up early the next morning and chopped wood for the fire. He put a saddle on his donkey and left with Isaac and two servants for the place where God had told him to go.
4. Three days later Abraham looked into the distance and saw the place.
5. He told his servants, “Stay here with the donkey, while my son and I go over there to worship. We will come back.”
6. Abraham put the wood on Isaac's shoulder, but he carried the hot coals and the knife. As the two of them walked along,
7-8. Isaac said, “Father, we have the coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”“My son,” Abraham answered, “God will provide the lamb.”The two of them walked on, and
9. when they reached the place that God had told him about, Abraham built an altar and placed the wood on it. Next, he tied up his son and put him on the wood.
10. He then took the knife and got ready to kill his son.
11. But the Lord's angel shouted from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”“Here I am!” he answered.
12. “Don't hurt the boy or harm him in any way!” the angel said. “Now I know that you truly obey God, because you were willing to offer him your only son.”
13. Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in the bushes. So he took the ram and sacrificed it in place of his son.
14. Abraham named that place “The Lord will Provide”. And even now people say, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
15. The Lord's angel called out from heaven a second time:
16. You were willing to offer the Lord your only son, and so he makes you this solemn promise,