Genesis 15
1 After these things, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your shield; your reward will be very great.”
2 Abram replied: “Lord GOD, what will you give me, since I remain childless and the heir of my household is Eliezer of Damascus?”
3 Abram added: “You have given me no offspring, and a member of my household is going to inherit from me.”
4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir; your heir will be someone who comes from your own body.”
5 He led him outside and said: “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can count them.” Then he added: “That is how numerous your offspring will be.”
6 Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD credited it to him as righteousness.
7 He said to him: “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land, so that you may take possession of it.”
8 Abram asked: “Lord GOD, how will I know that I will take possession of it?”
9 He replied: “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
10 Abram took all of them, cut them in half, and placed each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in half.
11 Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was setting, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and a terrifying, deep darkness fell over him.
13 He said to Abram: “Know for certain that your offspring will be foreigners in a land that does not belong to them. They will serve its people, who will oppress them for four hundred years.
14 But I will also judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will leave with great possessions.
15 As for you, you will go to your ancestors in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.
16 The fourth generation will return here, because the guilt of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking furnace and a flaming torch passed between those pieces.
18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram: “I give this land to your offspring, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates:
19 the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,
20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,
21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
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