"What can you give me, seeing I have no children?" Abram asked God. "You haven't given me an offspring and my servant Eliezer is the only one I have to leave my inheritance to."

"Eliezer won't be your heir," God told Abram. "One who comes from your own body will be your heir!"

God then took Abram out into the night and told him to look up at the stars in the sky.

"Look toward heaven," Abram was instructed. "Are you able to count the number of stars in the sky? So shall the number of your descendants be."

And Abram believed the words of the Lord and his faith was accounted to him for righteousness.

"I brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans," God told Abram. "To give you this land as an inheritance."

"How shall I know that I will inherit it?" Abram asked.

God then told Abram to bring Him a three year old female goat, a three year old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon and sacrifice them.

"Cut the animals in two and place the halves and the birds opposite each other. Then wait."

Abram kept watch over the lifeless animals, driving off the birds of prey, until the sun went down. Then as he fell into a deep sleep, total darkness came upon Abram.

"Your descendants will be strangers in a strange land, slaves to an oppressive people for four hundred years," the voice of God told Abram of future events. "Then I will step in and judge that nation and cause your descendants to come out with great wealth. And as for you, Abram, you will live in peace and die at an good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the sins of the Amorites aren't yet bad enough to drive them out of this land."

In the darkness a smoke arose and a blazing torch appeared as God passed between the pieces of animals. This may seem a strange thing to do, but in those times it was the custom for men who made an agreement to kill and cut animals in two then walk between the carcasses. In effect they were saying, "If I break this agreement, may I be killed like one of these animals." Abram knew that God was making a solemn agreement with him and believed that God would keep His promises.

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