Setting: Genesis 13:3-4
What a joy among joys, to see the face of Abram with my own eyes again. One would never guess that there had been a famine, for his flocks and herds were innumerable and healthy. Nor would one guess the age of his wife, for I could swear she was radiant as never before.
His story of their sojourn in Egypt, and his plundering of the Egyptians who desired his beautiful wife, only added to my joy. Anyone who bests Senusret, or his ruthless commander Khu-Sobek, is a friend of mine.
And Abram’s joy was made complete as well; I am not lying when I say he leapt for joy when I told him of my newfound devotion to El Elyon and He alone. For as I visited the altar of Adonai with increasing frequency during Abram’s absence, I began to have revelations there of a God unlike Baal or Asherah. El is a God who seems too good to be true, for His promises come to us unsought and unpurchased. He has smiled upon Luz and has blessed us with His protection and with the return of the rains to our land.
Abram and I gathered all of Luz and all of Abram’s household to the Altar of Adonai there before the mountain, and we feasted and danced as we never had before. The name of Adonai, long forgotten in our world, we remembered and called upon once more.
But not all that we discussed was pleasant, for it was my duty to tell Abram that war was seething in the land. For twelve years at that time the people of Canaan had been in subjection to Chedorlaomer, who resided far to the northeast in the kingdom of Elam. Abram was well enough acquainted with the Elamites from his days in Ur, and knew better than I what a fat and greedy overlord was this Chedorlaomer. Now in the thirteenth year of his tribute from Canaan, rebellion was spreading.
With the encouragement and support of Mardon, son of mighty Nimrod, Bera king of Sodom and Birsha king of Gomorrah, men I must sadly say are no better than Chedorlaomer, incited the smaller cities to open rebellion, while in their own cities they maintained an outward decorum of submission for the time being. But Shinab, king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of the little town of Zoar; these rebelled openly. Yes, and the whole countryside was full of little villages that began refusing to pay tribute, and stoning to death Chedorlaomer’s messengers. Mardon had no kingdom of his own, and this I am sure was his scheme to build an empire in Canaan.
In retaliation, the king of Elam and his allies, Armaphel of Shinar, Arioch of Ellasar, and Tidal who is called "king of nations", marched southward and smote the peasants of the land from Ashteroth-Kamaim, to Shaveh-Kirithaim, as far as mount Seir and El-paran, and returning on the East side of the Jordan they smote the Amalekites and the Amorites in towns such as En-mishpat and Hazezon-Tamar.
Inasmuch as these weaker towns were allies of Sodom and Gomorrah, Bera and Birsha were now amassing provisions and sharpening swords and spears for a retaliatory strike which must surely cast the entire land into utter turmoil.
Abram had little to say about these matters, inasmuch as he seemed to be an otherworldly man altogether. He was content to live off of those lands which were not under dispute, and trusted El Elyon to decide these matters in His own time.