The Call of Abram

12 The Lord said to Abram:

⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.^{(G) 5} He took his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, ⁶ Abram passed through the land to the site of Shechem,^(H) at the oak of Moreh. (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.) ⁷ The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring^[c](I) I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.

The Abrahamic Covenant

15 After these events, the word of the Lord came^(A) to Abram in a vision:

your reward will be very great.

² But Abram said, “Lord God, what can you give me, since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ^{[a] 3} Abram continued, “Look, you have given me no offspring, so a slave born in^[b] my house will be my heir.”

⁴ Now the word of the Lord came to him: “This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body^[c] will be your heir.” ⁵ He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.”^(D)

⁶ Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.^(E)