Genesis 15 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

After all this, the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision: "Don't be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, and your reward will be very great."

But Abram said, "Yahweh, my master, what can you give me? I'm still childless, and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus."

Abram continued, "Look, you haven't given me any children, so a servant born in my household will be my heir."

Then the word of Yahweh came to him: "This man will not be your heir. Instead, a son from your own body will be your heir."

He took him outside and said, "Look up at the sky and count the stars — if you can even count them." Then he told him, "That's how many your descendants will be."

Abram trusted Yahweh, and Yahweh regarded it as right standing with him.

Then he said to him, "I am Yahweh, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your own."

Abram said, "Yahweh, my master, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it?"

Yahweh told 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."

Abram brought all of these, cut them down the middle, and arranged the halves opposite each other. But he did not cut the birds.

Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

As the sun was going down, a deep, heavy sleep fell on Abram, and a terrifying, thick darkness closed in on him.

Then Yahweh said to Abram, "Know this for certain: your descendants will be strangers in a land that isn't theirs. They will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years."

"But I will also judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will come out with enormous wealth."

"As for you, you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age."

"In the fourth generation, they will return here, because the wrongdoing of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."

When the sun had set and it was fully dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between the pieces.

On that day, Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, "I am giving this land to your descendants — from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates — "

"the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,"

"the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,"

"the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites."