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¹ After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I [am] thy shield, [and] thy exceeding great reward.

² And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house [is] this Eliezer of Damascus?³ And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and lo, one born in my house is my heir.⁴ And behold, the word of the LORD [came] to him, saying, This shall not be thy heir; but he that shall come forth out of thy own bowels shall be thy heir.⁵ And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now towards heaven, and tell the stars, if thou art able to number them: and he said to him, So shall thy seed be.⁶ And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

⁷ And he said to him, I [am] the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.⁸ And he said, Lord GOD, by what shall I know that I shall inherit it?⁹ And he said to him, Take me a heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon.¹⁰ And he took to him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds he did not divide.¹¹ And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away.

¹² And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him.¹³ And he said to Abram, Know certainly that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land [that is] not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;¹⁴ And also that nation which they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.¹⁵ And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.¹⁶ But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites [is] not yet full.

¹⁷ And it came to pass, that when the sun had gone down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.¹⁸ In that same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, To thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:¹⁹ The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,²⁰ And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims,²¹ And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.