1: After all these things, this word of GOD came to Abram in a vision: "Don't be afraid, Abram. I'm your shield. Your reward will be grand!"
2: Abram said, "GOD, Master, what use are your gifts as long as I'm childless and Eliezer of Damascus is going to inherit everything?"
3: Abram continued, "See, you've given me no children, and now a mere house servant is going to get it all."
4: Then GOD's Message came: "Don't worry, he won't be your heir; a son from your body will be your heir."
5: Then he took him outside and said, "Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You're going to have a big family, Abram!"
6: And he believed! Believed GOD! God declared him "Set-Right-with-God."
7: GOD continued, "I'm the same GOD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldees and gave you this land to own."
8: Abram said, "Master GOD, how am I to know this, that it will all be mine?"
9: GOD said, "Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon."
10: He brought all these animals to him, split them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. But he didn't split the birds.
11: Vultures swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram scared them off.
12: As the sun went down a deep sleep overcame Abram and then a sense of dread, dark and heavy.
13: GOD said to Abram, "Know this: your descendants will live as outsiders in a land not theirs; they'll be enslaved and beaten down for 400 years.
14: Then I'll punish their slave masters; your offspring will march out of there loaded with plunder.
15: But not you; you'll have a long and full life and die a good and peaceful death.
16: Not until the fourth generation will your descendants return here; sin is still a thriving business among the Amorites."
17: When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch moved between the split carcasses.
18: That's when GOD made a covenant with Abram: "I'm giving this land to your children, from the Nile River in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Assyria--
19: the country of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,
20: Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim,
21: Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites." [JC]