1After these things the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram. I am a shield to you; your reward will be very great.”
2But Abram said, “Lord Yahweh, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
3And Abram said, “Look, to me you have given no offspring, and behold, a member of my household will be my heir.”
4And behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, “This one will not be your heir; rather one who comes out from your own body—he will be your heir.”
5And he brought him outside and said, “Look now toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
6And he believed in Yahweh, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.
7And he said to him, “I am Yahweh, who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.”
8But he said, “Lord Yahweh, by what shall I know that I will possess it?”
9And he said to him, “Take for me a heifer three years old, and a female goat three years old, and a ram three years old, and a turtledove and a young pigeon.”
10And he took for him all these, and he cut them in two down the middle, and he placed each half opposite its counterpart; but the bird he did not cut in two.
11And the birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.
12And it happened, as the sun was about to set, that a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, a dread, a great darkness, was falling upon him.
13And he said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land not their own, and they will serve them, and they will afflict them, four hundred years.
14But also the nation whom they will serve I will judge, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.
15And as for you, you will go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.
16And in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete until now.
17And it happened, when the sun had set and thick darkness had come, that behold, a smoking oven and a flaming torch that passed between these pieces.
18On that day Yahweh cut a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,
19the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite,
20and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim,
21and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.”
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