The LORD said to Abram, "Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's home, and go to a land that I am going to show you.

"Those who love their father or mother more than me are not fit to be my disciples; those who love their son or daughter more than me are not fit to be my disciples.

In the same way," concluded Jesus, "none of you can be my disciple unless you give up everything you have.

And so the Lord says, "You must leave them and separate yourselves from them. Have nothing to do with what is unclean, and I will accept you.

It was faith that made Abraham obey when God called him to go out to a country which God had promised to give him. He left his own country without knowing where he was going.

After Lot had left, the LORD said to Abram, "From where you are, look carefully in all directions.

I am going to give you so many descendants that no one will be able to count them all; it would be as easy to count all the specks of dust on earth!

Then the LORD said to him, "I am the LORD, who led you out of Ur in Babylonia, to give you this land as your own."

Then I took Abraham, your ancestor, from the land across the Euphrates and led him through the whole land of Canaan. I gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac,

You found that he was faithful to you, and you made a covenant with him. You promised to give him the land of the Canaanites, the land of the Hittites and the Amorites, the land of the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Girgashites, to be a land where his descendants would live. You kept your promise, because you are faithful.