The Certainty of God's Promise

¹³ For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, ^(A)he swore by himself,

¹⁵ And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven ¹⁶ and said, ^(A)“By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring ^(B)as the stars of heaven and ^(C)as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess ^(D)the gate of his^[a] enemies, ¹⁸ and ^(E)in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, ^(F)because you have obeyed my voice.”

¹⁶ For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes ^(A)an oath is final for confirmation. ¹⁷ So when God desired to show more convincingly to ^(B)the heirs of the promise ^(C)the unchangeable character of his purpose, ^(D)he guaranteed it with an oath, ¹⁸ so that by two unchangeable things, in which ^(E)it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope ^(F)set before us.