1 After all this had happened, God spoke to Abram in a vision, telling him, “Don't be afraid, Abram! I am your protector, and your truly great reward!”

2 But Abram replied, “Lord God, what good is whatever you give me? I don't have any children, and the heir to all that I have is Eliezer of Damascus.”* It was the practice of the time for childless couples to appoint their most trusted servant as their heir. 3 Abram went on to complain, “Look! You haven't given me any children, so a servant from my household has to be my heir!”

4 But then the Lord told him, “This man won't be your heir. Your heir will be your very own son.”

5 The Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up at the sky. See if you can count the stars! That's how many descendants you will have!”

6 Abram trusted what the Lord said, and so the Lord counted Abram as being in a right relationship with him.

7 The Lord also told him, “I am the Lord, who led you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land for you to own.”

8 “But Lord God, how can I be certain that I will own it?” Abram asked.

9 The Lord told him, “Bring me a cow, a goat, and a ram, all of them three years old, together with a dove and a young pigeon.” 10 So Abram took and killed the three animals. Then he cut them in half, and placed each half opposite the other. However, he didn't cut the birds in half. 11 When vultures flew down on the carcasses, Abram frightened them off.

12 As the sun went down, a deep sleep came over Abram, and at the same time a dense and terrifying darkness fell on him. 13 The Lord explained to Abram, “You can be absolutely sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be slaves and mistreated for 400 years. 14 However, I will punish the nation that makes them slaves, and later on they will leave, taking many valuable possessions with them. 15 But as for you, you will die in peace and be buried, having lived a good long life. 16 Four generations later your descendants will come back here to live, because right now the sins of the Amorites have not reached their full extent.”

17 After the sun set and it grew dark, suddenly a smoking furnace and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the halves of the animal carcasses. 18 This is how the Lord made an agreement with Abram that day and promised him, “I'm giving this land to your descendants. It extends from the Wadi of Egypt† “Wadi of Egypt”: Not the Nile, but what is known as the Wadi Arish today. See Numbers 34:5; Joshua 15:4, Joshua 15:47. to the great Euphrates River, 19 and includes the territory of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”