11). This covenant shows that God is a caring God. He does not like sin, or tolerate it, but He also has compassion. Throughout the Old Testament there are examples of covenants that God makes with His people. He always keep them, which shows that He is a sovereign God who can be trusted. .
Once again, the world was filled with people. The people gathered together and said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth" (Genesis 11.4). God didn't want that to happen, so he made them all speak a different language and scattered them over the face of the whole earth. God gives Abraham the promise of being a blessing to the world. Sarai became impatient to have children, so she sent her servant Hagar in to Abram. Hagar conceived and had a baby named Ishmael. This caused tension in the household of Abraham. Ishmael was later sent away, and a group of peoples called the Ishmaelites was started. God later changed Abram's name to Abraham, which means the father of many nations. Finally Abraham and Sarah had a baby named Isaac. .
Isaac had twin sons - Esau and Jacob. Jacob tricked his father and received the firstborn blessing that Esau should have received. Esau wanted to kill Jacob, so Jacob ran off to Paddan Aram. On his journey he had a dream about a ladder that went up to heaven. Angels were going up and down the ladder. God was standing at the top of the ladder and told Jacob that he would give him the land that he was sleeping on and his descendants would be like the dust of the earth. When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it" (Genesis 28.16). Jacob worked fourteen years in order to marry the woman he loved named Rachel, as well as her sister Leah. Jacob had twelve boys. One of them was Joseph.
