Genesis 15:7-13

Good News Translation

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 (A)When the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and fear and terror came over him. ^13 (B)The Lord said to him, “Your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land; they will be slaves there and will be treated cruelly for four hundred years.