Genesis 15

Modern English Version

The Abrahamic Covenant

15 After this the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying,

² But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³ Abram said, “Since You have not given me any children, my heir is a servant born in my house.”

⁴ Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but a son that is from your own body will be your heir.” ⁵ He brought him outside and said, “Look up toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So will your descendants be.”

⁶ Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.

⁷ He also said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess^[b] it.”

⁸ But Abram said, “Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?”

⁹ So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

¹⁰ Then Abram brought all of these to Him and cut them in two and laid each piece opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in half. ¹¹ When the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and terror and a great darkness fell on him. ¹³ Then He said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will live as strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will judge the nation that they serve, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace and you will be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation, your descendants will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

¹⁷ When the sun went down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot with a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great Euphrates River— ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaites, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”