1 Some time after these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am!” Abraham replied. 2 God said, “Take your son—your only son, whom you love, Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah! Offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will indicate to you.” 3 Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants with him, along with his son Isaac. When he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he started out for the place God had spoken to him about.

15 During the seventh week, in the first year during the first month — on the twelfth of this month — in this jubilee [2003], there were voices in heaven regarding Abraham, that he was faithful in everything that he told him, that the Lord loved him, and that in every difficulty he was faithful. 16 Then Prince Mastema came and said before God: ‘Abraham does indeed love his son Isaac and finds him more pleasing than anyone else. Tell him to offer him as a sacrifice on an altar. Then you will see whether he performs this order and will know whether he is faithful in everything through which you test him.’ 17 Now the Lord was aware that Abraham was faithful in every difficulty which he had told him. For he had tested him through his land and the famine; he had tested him through the wealth of kings; he had tested him again through his wife when she was taken forcibly, and through circumcision; and he had tested him through Ishmael and his servant girl Hagar when he sent them away.

After these things — misgivings were experienced on that occasion. Who then had misgivings? Avraham, saying to himself: ‘I have rejoiced and made all others rejoice, yet I did not set aside a single bullock or ram for the Holy One of Blessing.’ Said the Holy One of Blessing to him: ‘I know that even if you were commanded to offer your only son to Me, you would not refuse.’ - this is according to Rabbi Eleazar who said that the employment of va-e-lohim where E-lohim would suffice, implies both God and God’s Court. It was the ministering angels who spoke thus: ‘This Avraham rejoiced and made all others rejoice, yet did not set aside for the Holy One of Blessing a single bullock or ram.’ Said the Holy One of Blessing to them: ‘Even if we tell him to offer his own son, he will not refuse.’ Itzchak and Ishmael were engaged in a dispute: the latter argued, ‘I am more beloved than you, because I was circumcised at the age of thirteen’; while the other retorted, ‘I am more beloved than you, because I was circumcised at eight days.’ Said Ishmael to him: ‘I am more beloved, because I could have protested, yet I did not.’ At that moment Itzchak exclaimed: ‘O that God would appear to me and bid me cut off one of my limbs! then I would not refuse.’ Said God: ‘Even if I bid you sacrifice yourself, you will not refuse.’ [Another version: Said Ishmael to him: ‘I am more beloved than you, since I as circumcised at the age of thirteen, but you were circumcised as a baby and could not refuse.’ Itzchak retorted: ‘All that you did lend to the Holy One of Blessing was three drops of blood. But look, I am now thirty-seven years old, yet if God desired of me that I be slaughtered, I would not refuse.’ Said the Holy One of Blessing ‘This is the moment!’ Straightway, “God tested Avraham”.]