Genesis 15:7–17

⁷Then the Lord said to him, “I am the Lord, who led you out of Ur in Babylonia, to give you this land as your own.”

⁸But Abram asked, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that it will be mine?”

⁹He answered, “Bring me a cow, a goat, and a ram, each of them three years old, and a dove and a pigeon.” ¹⁰Abram brought the animals to God, cut them in half, and placed the halves opposite each other in two rows; but he did not cut up the birds. ¹¹Vultures came down on the bodies, but Abram drove them off.

^12*When the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and fear and terror came over him. ^13*The Lord said to him, “Your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land; they will be slaves there and will be treated cruelly for four hundred years. ^14*But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and when they leave that foreign land, they will take great wealth with them. ¹⁵You yourself will live to a ripe old age, die in peace, and be buried. ¹⁶It will be four generations before your descendants come back here, because I will not drive out the Amorites until they become so wicked that they must be punished.”

¹⁷When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire-pot and a flaming torch suddenly appeared and passed between the pieces of the animals.