Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
Genesis 15
Descendants beyond Counting
After these events, the LORD's word came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward will be very great.”
Abram said, “Lord GOD, what can you give me? I remain childless, and the heir of my household is Eliezer of Damascus.” Abram continued, “You have given me no descendants, so a member of my household will inherit from me.”
Then the LORD's word came to him: “This man will not be your heir. Someone born from your own body will inherit from you.” God brought him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.” Then God said, “That is how your descendants will be.”
Abram trusted the LORD, and the LORD counted it to him as righteousness.
The Covenant and the Land
God said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”
Abram asked, “Lord GOD, how can I know that I will possess it?”
God said, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Abram brought all these, cut the animals in two, and placed each half opposite the other. He did not cut the birds in two. Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.
As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a great, dark terror fell over him.
God said to Abram, “Know this for certain: your descendants will live as strangers in a land that is not theirs. They will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years. But I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will leave with great possessions. You yourself will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation they will return here, because the Amorites' wrongdoing has not yet reached its full measure.”
When the sun had set and darkness had come, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between the pieces.
That day the LORD made a covenant with Abram: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates: the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”