1After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision. He said, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great reward."
2But Abram said, "Lord GOD, what will you give me? I have no children, and the one who will take care of my house is Eliezer of Damascus."
3And Abram said, "Look, you have given me no children. So a servant born in my house will be my heir."
4Then the word of the LORD came to him. He said, "This man will not be your heir. Your own son will be your heir."
5He brought him outside and said, "Look up at the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And he said to him, "That is how many your children will be."
6And Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted it to him as righteousness.
7And he said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to be yours."
8And he said, "Lord GOD, how can I know that it will be mine?"
9And he said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."
10So he brought all these to him. He cut them in two down the middle, and laid each piece opposite the other. But he did not cut the birds in two.
11And when the birds of prey came down on the dead bodies, Abram drove them away.
12When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And a terrible thick darkness fell on him.
13And he said to Abram, "Know for certain that your children will be strangers in a land that is not theirs. They will serve the people there, and those people will treat them cruelly for four hundred years."
14"But I will judge that nation which they serve. Afterward they will come out with great riches."
15"And you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried at a good old age."
16"But in the fourth generation they will come back here. For the sin of the Amorites is not yet complete."
17Then, when the sun had gone down and it was dark, look: a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces.
18On that same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram. He said, "I have given this land to your children, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:"
19"the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,"
20"the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaims,"
21"the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites."