Genesis 17:19-20, 22: Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.

Genesis 22:2: Then God said, “Take your, your only son, whom you love - Isaac - and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” [Note: Should Abraham have reminded God Almighty that He does not want and, will not accept human sacrifice. Abraham just went along, ‘obediently’ with the request ‘from God’! Why would an Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient God, not have known that His prophet Abraham would obey this request although it does not seem to - make any sense! However, this is a foreshadowing of Jesus, God’s unique Son (see also John 3:16), who was sacrificed in humanity’s place. Abraham’s commitment to rely on God was strengthened; God knows the beginning from the end and we can depend upon Him, even at times when we do not fully understand His ways]. [Note well, how on another occasion this friend of God pleaded to God to save the righteous, if any were to be found, in Sodom and Gomorrah!]

Exodus 32:11-14: But Moses sought the favour of the LORD his God. “LORD”, he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil that He brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth. Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. [Note how this prophet and friend of God talks to God as a trusted friend, not just as an obedient servant, God listens to Moses and relented!]

Job 38:1-4: Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? [Note how God spoke to His friend Job; contrast the bad advice of Job’s wife and the unsympathetic and unknowledgeable counsel of his ‘friends’].

John 15:15: I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I have learned from my Father I have made known to you.

Matthew 6:9-13: This, then, is how you should pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Romans 12:19-20, 21: Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.