| 15 | Genesis | Passage |
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| 1 |
Some time later, the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision:
Do not be afraid, Abram!
I am your shield
and shall give you a very great reward. |
God's covenant with Abraham. Gn.15.1-21
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| 2 |
'Lord Yahweh,' Abram replied, 'what use are your gifts, as I am going on my way childless? . . . |
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| 3 |
Since you have given me no offspring,' Abram continued, 'a member of my household will be my heir.' |
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| 4 |
Then Yahweh's word came to him in reply, 'Such a one will not be your heir; no, your heir will be the issue of your own body.' |
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| 5 |
Then taking him outside, he said, 'Look up at the sky and count the stars if you can. Just so will your descendants be,' he told him. |
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| 6 |
Abram put his faith in Yahweh and this was reckoned to him as uprightness. |
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| 7 |
He then said to him, 'I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldaeans to give you this country as your possession.' |
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| 8 |
'Lord Yahweh,' Abram replied, 'how can I know that I shall possess it?' |
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| 9 |
He said to him, 'Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon.' |
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| 10 |
He brought him all these, split the animals down the middle and placed each half opposite the other; but the birds he did not divide. |
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| 11 |
And whenever birds of prey swooped down on the carcases, Abram drove them off. |
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| 12 |
Now, as the sun was on the point of setting, a trance fell on Abram, and a deep dark dread descended on him. |
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| 13 |
Then Yahweh said to Abram, 'Know this for certain, that your descendants will be exiles in a land not their own, and be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years. |
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| 14 |
But I shall bring judgement on the nation that enslaves them and after this they will leave, with many possessions. |
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| 15 |
For your part, you will join your ancestors in peace; you will be buried at a happy old age. |
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| 16 |
In the fourth generation they will come back here, for until then the iniquity of the Amorites will not have reached its full extent.' |
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| 17 |
When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passing between the animals' pieces. |
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| 18 |
That day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram in these terms:
'To your descendants I give this country,
from the River of Egypt to the Great River,
the River Euphrates, |
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| 19 |
the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, |
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| 20 |
the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, |
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| 21 |
the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.' |
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