[15:1] After this, Abram had a vision and heard the Lord say to him, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I will shield you from danger and give you a great reward.”
[15:2] But Abram answered, “Sovereign Lord, what good will your reward do me, since I have no children? My only heir is Eliezer of Damascus.
[15:3] You have given me no children, and one of my slaves will inherit my property.”
[15:4] Then he heard the Lord speaking to him again: “This slave Eliezer will not inherit your property; your own son will be your heir.”
[15:5] The Lord took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and try to count the stars; you will have as many descendants as that.”
[15:6] Abram put his trust in the Lord, and because of this the Lord was pleased with him and accepted him.
[15:7] Then the Lord said to him, “I am the Lord, who led you out of Ur in Babylonia, to give you this land as your own.”
[15:8] But Abram asked, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that it will be mine?”
[15:9] He answered, “Bring me a cow, a goat, and a ram, each of them three years old, and a dove and a pigeon.”
[15:10] Abram brought the animals to God, cut them in half, and placed the halves opposite each other in two rows; but he did not cut up the birds.
[15:11] Vultures came down on the bodies, but Abram drove them off.
[15:12] When the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and fear and terror came over him.
[15:13] The Lord said to him, “Your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land; they will be slaves there and will be treated cruelly for four hundred years.
[15:14] But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and when they leave that foreign land, they will take great wealth with them.
[15:15] You yourself will live to a ripe old age, die in peace, and be buried.
[15:16] It will be four generations before your descendants come back here, because I will not drive out the Amorites until they become so wicked that they must be punished.”
[15:17] When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch suddenly appeared and passed between the pieces of the animals.
[15:18] Then and there the Lord made a covenant with Abram. He said, “I promise to give your descendants all this land from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates River,
[15:19] including the lands of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,
[15:20] the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,
[15:21] the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”