Genesis 15

1After these events, the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am a shield for you, and your reward will be immense.”

2Abram replied, “Lord Yahweh, what can you give me, when I am going on without children and the one who will inherit my household is Eliezer of Damascus?”

3Abram went on, “Look, you have not given me any offspring, so someone from my household will inherit from me.”

4Then suddenly the word of Yahweh came to him: “This man will not inherit from you; someone who comes from your own body will be the one to inherit from you.”

5He took him outdoors and said, “Look up toward the heavens and count the stars, if you can count them.” Then he told him, “So will your offspring be.”

6Abram believed Yahweh, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

7He also said to him, “I am Yahweh, who led you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your own possession.”

8Abram asked, “Lord Yahweh, how am I to know that I will take possession of it?”

9He told him, “Get me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

10Abram brought him all these, split them down the middle, and set each piece across from its partner, though he did not split the birds.

11Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram chased them off.

12Just as the sun was setting, a deep sleep came upon Abram, and suddenly terror and a great darkness fell over him.

13Then Yahweh said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be foreigners in a land that is not theirs. They will be enslaved and oppressed there for four hundred years.

14But I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.

15You yourself, though, will go to your ancestors in peace; you will be buried at a ripe old age.

16They will return here in the fourth generation, because the guilt of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

17Once the sun had set and it was pitch dark, suddenly a smoking oven and a flaming torch passed between those pieces.

18That day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, declaring, “I have given this land to your offspring, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the Euphrates—

19the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,

20the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,

21the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”