4. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but a son that is from your own body will be your heir.”
5. He brought him outside and said, “Look up toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So will your descendants be.”
6. Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.
7. He also said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess it.”
8. But Abram said, “Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?”
9. So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
10. Then Abram brought all of these to Him and cut them in two and laid each piece opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in half.
11. When the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
12. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram, and terror and a great darkness fell on him.
13. Then He said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will live as strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.
14. But I will judge the nation that they serve, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.
15. As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace and you will be buried at a good old age.