Read the Modern Pastor’s Version

After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. He said, "Don't be afraid, Abram; I am your shield and your exceedingly great reward."

Abram replied, "Lord God, what will you give me since I go childless? The one who would inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus." Abram then said, "Behold, to me you have given no offspring. One born in my household is my heir."

The word of the Lord came to him saying, "This man shall not be your heir; but one who will come from your own body will be your heir." He brought Abram outside and said, "Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. So will your descendants be."

Abram believed in the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness. The Lord said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees to give you this land to inherit it." Abram asked, "Lord God, how will I know that I will inherit it?"

The Lord replied, "Take me an heifer of three years old, a she-goat of three years old, a ram of three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. Take all these and divide them in the middle, placing each piece opposite the other, but do not divide the birds." Abram did this as instructed.

When the birds came down upon the carcasses, Abram chased them away. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and suddenly a terrifying darkness enveloped him.

The Lord said to Abram, "Know with certainty that your descendants will be foreigners in a land not their own. They will serve them; they will afflict them for four hundred years." The Lord continued, "And also that nation whom they shall serve, I will judge. And afterward they shall come out with great substance."

Abram asked, "You will go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried in a good old age." The Lord replied, "But in the fourth generation they shall return here, because the wickedness of the Amorites has not yet reached its full extent."

As night fell, a smoking furnace with a burning torch passed between those pieces. In that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates." The territory included the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, and the Rephaims.