Abram’s vision

15 After these things God spoke to Abram in a vision saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield. Your reward will be exceedingly great.’ 2 But Abram said, ‘Lord God, what can you give me? I am childless, and the person who will be possessor of my house is Eliezer of Damascus, 3 to me you have given no offspring, and, so a slave born in my house is my heir.’ 4 The word of the Lord came to him, ‘This man will not be your heir, but a child of your own will be your heir.’

5 Then God brought him outside and said, ‘Look now toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them! So will your descendants be.’ 6 Abram believed in the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness, 7 and said to him, ‘I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give to you this land to inherit it.’

8 Abram said, ‘Lord God, how will I know that I will inherit it?’

9 The Lord said to him, ‘Bring me a heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon.’ 10 Abram brought him all these, and divided them in the middle, and laid each half over against the other; but the birds he did not divide. 11 The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

12 When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a horror of great darkness fell on him. 13 The Lord said to Abram, ‘Know certainly that your descendants will be foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will be slaves there; and they will be held there for four hundred years. 14 But I will judge that nation, whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many goods. 15 But you will go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried in a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation they return here again; for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.’

17 When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch that passed between the pieces of the animals.

18 At that time the Lord made a solemn agreement with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.’ 19 (This includes the lands of the Kenite, the Kenizzite, the Kadmonite, 20 the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Girgashite, and Jebusite).