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About God making a covenant with Abram
1 After some time, while he was inside his tent, Abram had a vision of Yahweh and he heard him speaking to him. Yahweh said to him, “Don't be afraid. I will stand between you and trouble so that you will be safe, and I will give you good things.”
2 Abram answered, “Lord Yahweh, why will you give good things to me? I have no children. Only one man is like my son, my servant Eliezer of Damascus. 3 You haven't given me any children, so Eliezer will take my things when I die.”
4 Then Abram heard Yahweh speaking to him again. He said, “Look! Eliezer won't take your things when you die. Truly you will have a son, and he will be the one who will have your things.”
5 Then Yahweh took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up to the sky and try and count the stars. Your descendants will increase until they are as many as those stars.”
6 Abram trusted in Yahweh. So because of that Yahweh was pleased with Abram.
7 Then Yahweh said to Abram, “I am Yahweh, the one who brought you out of Ur in Babylonia. I have brought you here to give you this land for yourself.”
8 But Abram said, “Lord Yahweh, how will I know this land belongs to me?”
9 Yahweh said to him, “Bring me a bullock, a goat and a male sheep, a ram. Get ones that are three years old. And also bring a dove and a pigeon.”
10 Abram went and got them and brought them to God. Then he killed them, cut them down the middle, and put the pieces of meat down on the ground, some on one side, and some on the other side, facing each other in two rows. But he didn't cut up the birds. 11 Some big birds like whistling kites came down to the meat, but Abram drove them away.
12 Then when the sun was going down Abram went sound asleep. While he was sleeping he became very frightened.
13-16 Then Yahweh said to him, “You will live until you become an old man and you will just die without any trouble, and then they will bury you. When you die, your descendants will go to a different land and they will live there as strangers. Cruel people who belong to that country will take your descendants and make them work hard for them there. Your descendants will go on living in that place for 400 years, because I won't yet drive out the Amorite people belonging to this country. These Amorite people are wicked but they will become more wicked later and then I will punish them and drive them out. Then I will become angry with those cruel people in that different country, and your descendants will leave there and they will come back here. When they come out of that country they will bring many things, many animals and a lot of money with them. They will be very, very rich.”
17 Then the sun set and it became dark. Suddenly coals and ashes appeared in a clay pot, with smoke rising from it. And fire appeared burning brightly like a torch of burning cypress pine. The two fires went between the pieces of meat that Abram had put on the ground.
18 Right at that time Yahweh made a covenant with Abram. Yahweh said to him, “These are my words and I won't change them. Truly I will give this whole land to your descendants. It goes from Egypt right over there to the big Euphrates River. 19 These are the people who own these areas today. Some places belong to the Kenite people, some to the Kenizzite people, some to the Kadmonite people, 20 some to the Hittite people, some to the Perizzite people and some to the Rephaim people. 21 Some places belong to the Amorite people, some to the Canaanite people, some to the Girgashite people, and some to the Jebusite people. Truly I will give all these places of theirs to your descendants.”