Genesis 15

God’s Covenant with Abram

1 After all this, God spoke to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not be scared, Abram. I am your shield, and your reward is going to be big.’

2 Abram said, ‘Lord God, what can You give me, I do not have any kids, and my heir is Eliezer of Damascus.’

3 He added, ‘You have not given me any children, so someone from my household is going to inherit everything.’

4 God said, ‘Nah, that is it not. Your heir is going to be your own flesh and blood.’

5 Then God took Abram outside and said, ‘Look up at the stars. Count them if you can. That is how many descendants you are going to have.’

6 Abram believed God, and God counted it as righteousness.

God’s Promise of the Land

7 God said to Abram, ‘I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to own.’

8 Abram said, ‘Lord God, how can I know I am really going to own it,’

9 God said, ‘Bring Me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.’

10 Abram brought all of them, cut them in half, and laid the pieces opposite each other. But he did not cut the birds.

11 Some vultures tried to swoop down on the carcasses, but Abram chased them off.

God’s Covenant Confirmed

12 As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick, scary darkness came over him.

13 God said, ‘Know this for sure: Your descendants are going to be strangers in a land that is not theirs. They will be enslaved and mistreated for 400 years.’

14 ‘But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and afterward, they will leave with a lot of stuff.’

15 ‘As for you, you will live a long life and die in peace.’

16 ‘Your descendants will come back here in the fourth generation, because the sin of the Amorites is not reached its peak yet.’

17 When the sun went down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between the pieces of the animals.

18 On that day, God made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘I am giving this land to your descendants, from the Wadi of Egypt to the Euphrates River.’

19 ‘The land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,’

20 ‘Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,’

21 ‘Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.’