It was a long, long time after Noah and the seven who were with him went out of the ark and heard God’s covenant with them and saw its beautiful sign in the sky. Now there were many people in the earth, and though they were not so wicked as the people had been before the Flood, they had forgotten the God to whom Noah built his altar and offered sacrifices, and from whom he heard the promise of blessing. Instead of worshiping Him who is the maker of the heavens and the earth, they were worshiping the sun and the moon and the stars, and even idols made by men. Of course they could not obey the God whom Noah served when they were giving all their thought to idols, neither could God speak to them, because they would not listen to his voice. Among the people who were descended from Shem, the oldest son of Noah, there was a man named Terah, who lived in Ur of the Chaldees. He made up his mind to take his family and move away from the place where he was then living to Canaan, a country far from Ur. We do not know just why he decided to do this, but he started from Ur with his son Abram, his nephew Lot, and Abram’s wife, Sarai. They did not go to Canaan, but stopped at a place called Haran, and there Terah died. Terah was a worshiper of idols, but Abram, his son, had somehow kept the faith in the one true God, and did not bow down to the moon or stars or to idols of wood or stone. Because Abram loved the heavenly Father, God could speak to him, and Abram could hear God’s voice, and his love made him wish to do just what God asked him to do. So it happened that at Haran Abram heard God speaking to him, and saying, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee.” God did not tell Abram where he wanted him to go, he only said, “I will show you the land,” but he gave him a wonderful promise, for he said, “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”