NETtext - Genesis - 15

15:1  After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Fear not, Abram! I am your shield and the one who will reward you in great abundance."

15:2  But Abram said, "O sovereign LORD, what will you give me since I continue to be childless, and my heir is Eliezer of Damascus?"

15:3  Abram added, "Since you have not given me a descendant, then look, one born in my house will be my heir!"

15:4  But look, the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but instead a son who comes from your own body will be your heir."

15:5  The LORD took him outside and said, "Gaze into the sky and count the stars - if you are able to count them!" Then he said to him, "So will your descendants be."

15:6  Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD considered his response of faith as proof of genuine loyalty.

15:7  The LORD said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess."

15:8  But Abram said, "O sovereign LORD, by what can I know that I am to possess it?"

15:9  The LORD said to him, "Take for me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon."

15:10  So Abram took all these for him and then cut them in two and placed each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in half.

15:11  When birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

15:12  When the sun went down, Abram fell sound asleep, and great terror overwhelmed him.

15:13  Then the LORD said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign country. They will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years.

15:14  But I will execute judgment on the nation that they will serve. Afterward they will come out with many possessions.

15:15  But as for you, you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.

15:16  In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its limit."

15:17  When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking firepot with a flaming torch passed between the animal parts.

15:18  That day the LORD made a covenant with Abram: "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River -

15:19  the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,

15:20  Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,

15:21  Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites."