This is Abraham. God loves him and has made him rich and great. He has given Abraham silver and gold and flocks of sheep and goats and camels. But Abraham said that God had not given him a son, to have all these things after Abraham should be dead. Then God spoke to Abraham in the night and told him to come out of his house and look up at the sky. And God asked him if he could count those stars that he saw up in the sky. But there were too many; Abraham could not count them. Then God told Abraham that he would give him a son, and that his son should have children too. Abraham's children and his children's children, God said, should be like those stars —so many that nobody could count them.
ABRAHAM, THE FRIEND OF GOD
WHAT THIS STORY TELLS US AFTER the Flood, the Bible tells us, men grew foolish and idolatrous, and began to sin against God, so that the human race was in…
