Genesis

¹ 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 female 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 covenant 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).