Chapter 15

It was after this that the Lord sent word to Abram in a vision, Have no fear, Abram, I am here to protect thee; thy reward shall be great indeed.

But Abram answered, Lord God, what can this gift of thine be? I must go the way of childless men; Damascus here, the son of Eliezer, is but the son of my steward;

to me (Abram added) thou hast given no children, so that all the heir I have is a slave born in my house.

Whereupon the Lord sent word to him, This man shall not succeed thee; thou shalt have an heir sprung from thy own body.

Then he took him out of doors, and said to him, Look up at the sky, and count, if thou canst, the stars in it; thy race, like these, shall be numberless.

So Abram put his faith in God, and it was reckoned virtue in him.

And now God said to him, I am the Lord, who brought thee out from Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee possession of this land instead.

And when he asked, Lord God, what assurance may I have, that it is mine?

the Lord answered, Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, and a three-year-old ram, and a turtle-dove, and a pigeon.

All these he brought to him, and cut them in half, laying the two halves of each on opposite sides, except the dove and the pigeon; he did not divide these.

The whole day long Abram stood there, driving away the carrion-birds as they swooped down on the carcases;

but when the sun set, deep sleep fell upon him, and in the darkness a great dread assailed him.

So a voice came to him, This thou must know, that thy race will live as strangers in a land not their own, reduced to slavery and ill-used for four hundred years.

But I am there to pass judgement on the nation which enslaves them; and when this is done, they shall come back rich in possessions.

For thyself, thou shalt be buried with thy fathers, grown old in comfort;

but the fourth generation will have come before these return hither; the wickedness of the Amorrhites has not reached its full term.

So the sun went down, and when the darkness of night came on, a smoking furnace was seen, a torch of fire that passed between the pieces of flesh.

And the Lord, that day, made a covenant with Abram; I will grant this land, he told him, to thy posterity, with its borders reaching up to the river of Egypt, and the great river Euphrates;

the land of the Cinites, and the Cenezites, and the Cedmonites,

the Hethites and the Pherezites, the Raphaim, too,

and the Amorrhites, and the Chanaanites, and the Gergesites, and the Jebusites.