A Deep Sleep

The Covenant · Genesis 15

Story guide: Abram prepares animals for a covenant, and in a deep sleep Yahweh foretells his offspring’s future.

7And he said to him, “I am Yahweh, who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”

8And he said, “Lord Yahweh, how will I know that I will possess it?”

9And he said to 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.”

10So he brought all these to him, cut them in two, and placed each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.

11And the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.

12As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram. And behold, a great dark dread fell upon him.

13Then he said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land not theirs, and they will enslave them and afflict them four hundred years.”

14But I will also judge the nation that they serve, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.

15As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.

16And in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.

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