And the glory of the Lord was revealed over him at the crossroads of Mamre, and he was ill from the pain of circumcision as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day.

And he lift up his eyes and looked and, lo, three angels in the form of men stood over against him. They had been sent for three separate tasks, because ministering angels cannot be sent for more than one task each: one had come to tell him that Sarah would bear a son, one had come to rescue Lot, and one had come to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the earth,

and said, ‘I pray, by the mercies from before you, O Lord, that if now I have found favour before you the glory of your Shekina may not now depart from thy servant until I have received these travellers’.

And Abraham said to those men: ‘Let now a little water be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree:

and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your heart, and give thanks to the name of the word of the Lord; after that ye shall pass on: forasmuch as ye are come at the time of refreshment and have turned aside to your servant to take food.’