God said to Abram, “I am the LORD who led you out of Ur of Babylonia so that I could give you this land to own.”
But Abram said, “Lord GOD, how can I be sure that I will own this land?”
The LORD said to Abram, “Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old goat, a three-year-old male sheep, a dove, and a young pigeon.”
Abram brought them all to God. Then Abram killed the animals and cut each of them into two pieces, laying each half opposite the other half. But he did not cut the birds in half. Later, large birds flew down to eat the animals, but Abram chased them away.
As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep. While he was asleep, a very terrible darkness came. Then the LORD said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers and travel in a land they don’t own. The people there will make them slaves and be cruel to them for four hundred years. But I will punish the nation where they are slaves. Then your descendants will leave that land, taking great wealth with them. And you, Abram, will die in peace and will be buried at an old age. After your great-great-grandchildren are born, your people will come to this land again. It will take that long, because I am not yet going to punish the Amorites for their evil behavior.”
After the sun went down, it was very dark. Suddenly a smoking firepot and a blazing torch passed between the halves of the dead animals. So on that day the LORD made an agreement with Abram and said, “I will give to your descendants the land between the river of Egypt and the great river Euphrates. This is the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites
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