^5 (A)The Lord took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and try to count the stars; you will have as many descendants as that.”

^6 (B)Abram put his trust in the Lord, and because of this the Lord was pleased with him and accepted him.

⁷ Then 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.”

⁸ But Abram asked, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that it will be mine?”

⁹ He answered, “Bring me a cow, a goat, and a ram, each of them three years old, and a dove and a pigeon.” ¹⁰ Abram 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. ¹¹ Vultures came down on the bodies, but Abram drove them off.

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

¹⁷ When 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. ^18 (A)Then 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,