15:1 After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield,* your very great reward.**” / *Or sovereign / **Or shield; your reward will be very great
15:2 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit* my estate is Eliezer of Damascus? ” / *The meaning of the Hebrew for this phrase is uncertain.
15:3 And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
15:4 Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.”
15:5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars - if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring* be.” / *Or seed
15:6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
15:7 He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
15:8 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”
15:9 So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
15:10 Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.
15:11 Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
15:12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.
15:13 Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.
15:14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.
15:15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.
15:16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
15:17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.
15:18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi* of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates - / *Or river
15:19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,
15:20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,
15:21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”