God’s Covenant with Abram

15 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’ ² But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’^{[a] 3} And Abram said, ‘You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.’ ⁴ But the word of the Lord came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.’ ⁵ He brought him outside and said, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ ⁶ And he believed the Lord; and the Lord^[b] reckoned it to him as righteousness.

⁷ Then he said to him, ‘I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.’ ⁸ But he said, ‘O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?’ ⁹ He said to him, ‘Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon.’ ¹⁰ He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. ¹¹ And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.

¹⁷ When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire-pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,