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Genesis 15 - Good News Bible bible

Genesis 15

¹After this, Abram had a vision and heard the LORD say to him, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I will shield you from danger and give you a great reward."

²But Abram answered, "Sovereign LORD, what good will your reward do me, since I have no children? My only heir is Eliezer of Damascus.

³You have given me no children, and one of my slaves will inherit my property."

⁴Then he heard the LORD speaking to him again: "This slave Eliezer will not inherit your property; your own son will be your heir."

⁵The LORD took him outside and said, "Look at the sky and try to count the stars; you will have as many descendants as that."

⁶Abram put his trust in the LORD, and because of this the LORD was pleased with him and accepted him.

⁷Then the LORD said to him, "I am the LORD, who led you out of Ur in Babylonia, to give you this land as your own."

⁸But Abram asked, "Sovereign LORD, how can I know that it will be mine?"

⁹He answered, "Bring me a cow, a goat, and a ram, each of them three years old, and a dove and a pigeon."

¹⁰Abram brought the animals to God, cut them in half, and placed the halves opposite each other in two rows; but he did not cut up the birds.

¹¹Vultures came down on the bodies, but Abram drove them off.

¹²When the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and fear and terror came over him.

¹³The LORD said to him, "Your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land; they will be slaves there and will be treated cruelly for four hundred years.

¹⁴But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and when they leave that foreign land, they will take great wealth with them.

¹⁵You yourself will live to a ripe old age, die in peace, and be buried.

¹⁶It will be four generations before your descendants come back here, because I will not drive out the Amorites until they become so wicked that they must be punished."

¹⁷When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch suddenly appeared and passed between the pieces of the animals.

¹⁸Then and there the LORD made a covenant with Abram. He said, "I promise to give your descendants all this land from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates River,

¹⁹including the lands of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,

²⁰the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,

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