Genesis - The Old Testament

¹ Some time later, the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision: Do not be afraid, Abram! I am your shield and shall give you a very great reward.

² 'Lord Yahweh,' Abram replied, 'what use are your gifts, as I am going on my way childless? . . .

³ Since you have given me no offspring,' Abram continued, 'a member of my household will be my heir.'

⁴ Then Yahweh's word came to him in reply, 'Such a one will not be your heir; no, your heir will be the issue of your own body.'

⁵ Then taking him outside, he said, 'Look up at the sky and count the stars if you can. Just so will your descendants be,' he told him.

⁶ Abram put his faith in Yahweh and this was reckoned to him as uprightness.

⁷ He then said to him, 'I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldaeans to give you this country as your possession.'

⁸ 'Lord Yahweh,' Abram replied, 'how can I know that I shall possess it?'

⁹ He said to him, 'Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon.'

¹⁰ He brought him all these, split the animals down the middle and placed each half opposite the other; but the birds he did not divide.

¹¹ And whenever birds of prey swooped down on the carcases, Abram drove them off.

¹² Now, as the sun was on the point of setting, a trance fell on Abram, and a deep dark dread descended on him.

¹³ Then Yahweh said to Abram, 'Know this for certain, that your descendants will be exiles in a land not their own, and be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years.

¹⁴ But I shall bring judgement on the nation that enslaves them and after this they will leave, with many possessions.

¹⁵ For your part, you will join your ancestors in peace; you will be buried at a happy old age.

¹⁶ In the fourth generation they will come back here, for until then the iniquity of the Amorites will not have reached its full extent.'

¹⁷ When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passing between the animals' pieces.

¹⁸ That day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram in these terms: 'To your descendants I give this country, from the River of Egypt to the Great River, the River Euphrates,

¹⁹ the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,

²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,

²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.'