Genesis 15

reviewed Worded for an eighth-grade reader; the reading is the Translation's. Read the Translation with its notes.

1 After these things, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision. He said, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am a shield for you, your wage, made very great." 2 But Abram said, "Lord GOD, what will you give me? I go on without children. And the son of the holding of my house is Damascus Eliezer." 3 Abram said, "Look, you have given me no offspring. So a son of my household will take possession of all I have." 4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not take possession of what is yours. Your own child, who will come from your body, will take possession of it." 5 He brought Abram outside and said, "Please look up at the sky. Count the stars, if you can count them." Then he said to him, "So will your offspring be." 6 Abram believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as justice. 7 He said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans. I did it to give you this land to possess." 8 But Abram said, "Lord GOD, how will I know that I will possess it?"

9 He said to him, "Bring me a threefold heifer, a threefold goat and a threefold ram. Bring a turtledove and a young bird too." 10 He took all these for him. He cut them in two down the middle and laid each piece opposite the other. But he did not cut the birds in two. 11 Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, and Abram drove them away. 12 As the sun was going down, a trance fell on Abram. And a dread, a great darkness, fell on him. 13 Then he said to Abram, "Know for certain that your offspring will be foreigners in a land not their own. They will serve them, and they will afflict them. This will last 400 years. 14 But I will judge the nation they serve. After that they will come out with great wealth. 15 As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation they will come back here, because the wrongdoing of the Amorites is not yet complete."

17 When the sun had gone down and it was dusk, an oven of smoke and a torch of fire appeared. They passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram. He said, "I have given this land to your offspring. It reaches from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates. 19 It is the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites and the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites and the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites."