Then God took Abram outside. “Look up at the sky. Count the stars—if you can.” Abram lifted his eyes. The heavens stretched endlessly above him, filled with more stars than he could number.

“So shall your descendants be.”

Abram stood there in silence, the weight of the promise settling over him. Then, quietly, he believed. The Lord saw his faith and counted him as righteous.

Later, God said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you here to give you this land.” But Abram asked, “How can I know it will truly be mine?”

God answered, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old goat, a three-year-old ram, along with a turtledove and a young pigeon.”

Abram obeyed. He cut the animals in two and arranged the halves opposite each other, though he did not divide the birds. Then he waited.

Birds of prey circled and swooped down, but Abram drove them away. As the sun began to set, a deep sleep fell over him. A thick and dreadful darkness closed in, and terror gripped his heart.

Then God spoke: “Know this for certain—your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not their own. They will be enslaved and afflicted for four hundred years. But I will judge that nation, and afterward your descendants will come out with great possessions.”

Suddenly, in the stillness of the night, a smoking fire pot and a blazing torch appeared. As Abram watched, they moved between the divided pieces.

God said, “This is my covenant with you. I will give this land to your descendants—all of it —from the north, south, east, and west.”