God made a strong promise to Abram

1Later on, after Abram saved Lot from the 4 kings, the Lord talked to Abram in a vision. It was like he was dreaming with his eyes open. The Lord said, “Abram, don't be frightened, I will keep you safe so that no one can hurt you, and I am going to do a lot of good things for you.”

2But Abram said, “O Lord. What can you give me? You have not given me the one thing I really want. You have not given me any children. When I die, one of my workmen named Elee-ay-zer from Damascus, will get everything I have.”

4The Lord said to Abram, “I tell you. That man from Damascus will not get everything when you die. I am going to give you a son and he will be the one who gets everything.”

5Then the Lord took Abram outside the tent and said, “Look up at the sky and try to count all those stars. You cannot do that. And just like those stars, there will be so many people in your family you will not be able to count them.”

6Abram believed the Lord's words, and so God said to himself, “Abram is a good man who lives the right way for me. No one can say that he is guilty of doing anything wrong.”

God made another promise to Abram

7The Lord said to Abram, “I am your God. I am the one who led you out of your homeland of Ur in Kaldea, and I am going to give you this country to live in.”

8But Abram asked, “O Lord. How can I know that I will have all this country for myself?”

9So the Lord said to Abram, “Bring me a cow that has not had a calf, a girl goat and a boy sheep. All these animals have to be 3 years old. And I want you to bring me 2 different kinds of pigeons.”

10Abram did what God told him. He killed the animals and split them in half. He put the halves of the animals on the ground in 2 lines so that their feet were nearly touching. But he did not cut the birds in half.

11Some eagles flew down and tried to eat the animals, but Abram chased them away.

12As the sun went down, Abram fell into a really deep sleep and a scary darkness came down on top of him.

13Then the Lord said to Abram, “I want you to know for sure what will happen to you later on. When you die, you will be really old but you will feel good and quiet inside yourself. But I have to tell you something. Later on, your family will leave this country and move to another country. They will be strangers in that land and later on they will be prisoners and have to work very hard. The people that live in that country will do really bad things to your family for 400 years. Then I will save your people from that hard time and I will punish that nation for what they did to your family. Your family will be really rich when they leave that country. They will have a lot of money and animals.

16And I will bring your family back here to this country that I have promised to you. You see the Amorite people that live in this country do really bad things. They go against me all the time and they are getting worse and worse. And so, after your grandchildren have grandchildren, I will take this country away from the Amorite people and give it to your family.”

17When the sun went down and it was really dark, Abram saw a fire bucket with smoke coming out of it and a fire stick. He saw the fire bucket and burning stick move between the pieces of animals that he had cut in half.

18This was the way God showed Abram that he was serious about the promise he made. God said to him again, “I am going to give all this country to your family, from the river in Egypt all the way to the great river You-fray-tees that is in the country where you came from. This is a list of the tribes that live in this country. They are called, the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Refay-ites, Amorites, Canaanites, Gir-gash-ites, and the Jebusites. I will take this country away from all these people and give it to your family.”