Genesis 15

God's Covenant with Abram

¹After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”²But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”³And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”⁴And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.”⁵And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”⁶And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

⁷And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”⁸But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”⁹He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”¹⁰And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.¹¹And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹²As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.¹³Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.¹⁴But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.¹⁵As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.¹⁶And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

¹⁷When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.¹⁸On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river 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.”