8. Abram asked, “Lord God, how can I know the land will be mine?”
9. Then the Lord told him, “Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a dove, and a young pigeon.”
10. Abram obeyed the Lord. Then he cut the animals in half and laid the two halves of each animal opposite each other on the ground. But he did not cut the doves and pigeons in half.
11. And when birds came down to eat the animals, Abram chased them away.
12. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and everything became dark and frightening.
16. Four generations later, your descendants will return here and take this land, because only then will the people who live here be so sinful that they deserve to be punished.
17. Some time after sunset, when it was very dark, a smoking cooking pot and a flaming fire went between the two halves of each animal.
18. At that time the Lord made an agreement with Abram and told him:I will give your descendants the land east of the River Shihor on the border of Egypt as far as the River Euphrates.
19. They will possess the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,
20. the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaites,
21. the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.