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God's Agreement With Abram

¹ After all these things happened, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. God said, "Abram, don't be afraid. I will defend you and give you a great reward."

² But Abram said, "Lord God, there is nothing you can give me that will make me happy, because I have no son. My slave Eliezer from Damascus will get everything I own after I die." ³ Abram said, "You have given me no son, so a slave born in my house will get everything I have."

⁴ Then the Lord spoke to Abram and said, "That slave will not be the one to get what you have. You will have a son who will get everything you own."

⁵ Then God led Abram outside and said, "Look at the sky. See the many stars. There are so many you cannot count them. Your family will be like that."

⁶ Abram believed the Lord, and because of this faith the Lord accepted him as one who has done what is right. ⁷ He said to Abram, "I am the Lord who led you from Ur of Babylonia.^[a] I did this so that I could give you this land. You will own this land."

⁸ But Abram said, "Lord God, how can I be sure that I will get this land?"

⁹ God said to Abram, "We will make an agreement. Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old goat, a three-year-old ram, a dove, and a young pigeon."

¹⁰ Abram brought all these to God. Abram killed these animals and cut each of them into two pieces. Then he laid each half across from the other half. He did not cut the birds into two pieces. ¹¹ Later, large birds flew down to eat the animals, but Abram chased them away.

¹² The sun began to go down and Abram got very sleepy. While he was asleep, a very terrible darkness came over him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, "You should know this: Your descendants will live in a country that is not their own. They will be strangers there. The people there will make them slaves and be cruel to them for 400 years. ¹⁴ But then I will punish the nation that made them slaves. Your people will leave that land, and they will take many good things with them.

¹⁵ "You yourself will live to be very old. You will die in peace and will be buried with your family. ¹⁶ After four generations your people will come to this land again and defeat the Amorites. That will happen in the future because the Amorites are not yet guilty enough to lose their land."

¹⁷ After the sun went down, it got very dark. The dead animals were still on the ground, each animal cut into two pieces. Then a smoking firepot^[b] and a flaming torch passed between the halves of the dead animals.^[c]

¹⁸ So on that day the Lord made a promise and an agreement with Abram. He said, "I will give this land to your descendants. I will give them the land between the River of Egypt^[d] and the great river Euphrates. ¹⁹ This is the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, ²⁰ Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, ²¹ Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites."