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¹ After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Have no fear, Abram: I will keep you safe, and great will be your reward.

² And Abram said, What will you give me? for I have no child and this Eliezer of Damascus will have all my wealth after me.³ And Abram said, You have given me no child, and a servant in my house will get the heritage.⁴ Then said the Lord, This man will not get the heritage, but a son of your body will have your property after you.⁵ And he took him out into the open air, and said to him, Let your eyes be lifted to heaven, and see if the stars may be numbered; even so will your seed be.⁶ And he had faith in the Lord, and it was put to his account as righteousness.

⁷ And he said to him, I am the Lord, who took you from Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land for your heritage.⁸ And he said, O Lord God, how may I be certain that it will be mine?⁹ And he said, Take a young cow of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a sheep of three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon.¹⁰ All these he took, cutting them in two and putting one half opposite the other, but not cutting the birds in two.¹¹ And evil birds came down on the bodies, but Abram sent them away.

¹² Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep came on Abram, and a dark cloud of fear.¹³ And he said to Abram, Truly, your seed will be living in a land which is not theirs, as servants to a people who will be cruel to them for four hundred years;¹⁴ But I will be the judge of that nation whose servants they are, and they will come out from among them with great wealth.¹⁵ As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace; at the end of a long life you will be put in your last resting-place.¹⁶ And in the fourth generation they will come back here; for at present the sin of the Amorite is not full.

¹⁷ Then when the sun went down and it was dark, he saw a smoking fire and a flaming light which went between the parts of the bodies.¹⁸ In that day the Lord made an agreement with Abram, and said, To your seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:¹⁹ The Kenite, the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite,²⁰ And the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim,²¹ And the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.