15:1 Some time later the Lord communicated these words to Abram in a vision, “Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
15:2 Abram answered, “My Lord God, what will you give me? I will pass away without children and my heir will be Eliezer of Damascus.”
15:3 Abram continued, “Behold, you have not given me descendants, and my servant will be my heir.”
15:4 Then the word of the Lord came unto him, “He will not be your heir; your own child will be your heir.”
15:5 Then he led him outside and told him, “Look into the heavens and count the stars, if you can count them. Such,” he continued, “will your descendants be.”
15:6 Abraham believed the Lord, who credited it to him as righteousness.
15:7 And he said, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to take possession of this land.”
15:8 He answered, “O Lord God, how will I know that I am to possess it?”
15:9 He said, “Take a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
15:10 He took all these animals and split them in two and placed each half opposite the other (except for the birds).
15:11 Birds of prey landed upon the carcasses, but Abram chased them away.
15:12 As the sun was setting, a trance fell upon Abram, and a fearful darkness descended upon him.
15:13 The Lord said to Abram, “Know that your descendants shall be foreigners in a land that is not their own. They shall be made slaves and oppressed for four hundred years.
15:14 But I will execute my judgment upon the nation that they will have served. They will leave it with great riches.
15:15 As for you, you will go in peace to your fathers, and you will be buried at a happy old age.
15:16 In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet come to full measure.”
15:17 When the sun set, it was dark, and a smoking brazier and a flaming torch passed between the carcasses of the animals that had been split in two.
15:18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, “To your descendants I will give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates,
15:19 the dwelling place of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,
15:21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
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