Genesis 15:7-16

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

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.”^{(A) 8} But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”^{(B) 9} He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, 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.^{(C) 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.^{(D) 13} Then the Lord^[a] said to Abram, “Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years,^{(E) 14} but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.^{(F) 15} As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.^{(G) 16} And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”^(H)