1 After these events the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Do not fear, Abram; I am a shield for you. Your reward will be very great."
2 Abram said, "Lord GOD, what will you give me, when I am going on without children, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?"
3 Abram went on, "You have given me no seed; so one born in my house is to be my heir."
4 And at once the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir; one who comes from your own body—he will be your heir."
5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars, if you can count them." Then he said to him, "So will your seed be."
6 And he believed the LORD, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.
7 And he said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession."
8 He replied, "Lord GOD, by what will I know that I am to possess it?"
9 He told him, "Take for me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."
10 He took all these for him, split them down the middle, and placed each piece facing its partner; but the birds he did not split.
11 Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them off.
12 When the sun was about to set, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and there was terror, a great darkness, falling upon him.
13 Then he said to Abram, "Know for sure that your seed will be strangers in a land not their own; they will serve the people there, and those people will oppress them four hundred years.
14 But the nation they serve I too will judge, and after that they will come out with great wealth.
15 You yourself will join your fathers in peace and be buried in good old age.
16 In the fourth generation they will come back here, for the guilt of the Amorite is not yet full."
17 When the sun had set and thick darkness had come, there appeared a smoking oven and a blazing torch that passed between those pieces.
18 That day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:
19 the Kenite, the Kenizzite, the Kadmonite,
20 the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Rephaim,
21 the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Girgashite, and the Jebusite."