Genesis 15

CHAPTER 15

1And so when these things were done, the word of the Lord was made to Abram by a vision, and said, Abram, do not thou dread, I am thy defender, and thy meed is full great.

2And Abram said, Lord God, what shalt thou give to me? I shall go without free children, and this Damascus, son of Eliezer, the procurator of mine house, shall be mine heir.

3And Abram added, Soothly thou hast not given seed to me, and, lo! my born servant shall be mine heir.

4And anon the word of the Lord was made to him, and said, This shall not be thine heir, but thou shalt have him heir, that shall go out of thy womb.

5And the Lord led out Abram, and said to him, Behold thou heaven, and number the stars, if thou mayest. And the Lord said to Abram, So thy seed shall be.

6Abram believed to God, and it was reckoned to him to rightwiseness.

7And God said to him, I am the Lord, that led thee out of Ur of Chaldees, that I should give this land to thee, and thou shouldest have it in possession.

8And Abram said, Lord God, where-by shall I know that I shall wield it?

9And the Lord answered, and said, Take thou to me a cow of three years, and a goat of three years, and a ram of three years, and a turtledove, and a culver.

10Which took all these things, and parted those [or them] by the midst [or the middle], and setted [or put] ever either part each against other; but he parted not the birds.

11And fowls came down on the carrions, and Abram drove them away.

12And when the sun was gone down, dread felled on Abram, and a great hideousness and dark assailed him.

13And it was said to him, Know thou a before-knowing, that thy seed shall be [a] pilgrim four hundred years in a land not his own, and they shall make them subject to servage, and they shall torment them;

14nevertheless I shall deem the folk to whom they shall serve; and after these things they shall go out with great chattel [or substance].

15Forsooth thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, and shalt be buried in good [eld] age.

16Soothly in the fourth generation they shall turn again hither, for the wickedness of [the] Amorites be not yet [full-]filled, till to present time.

17Therefore when the sun was gone down, a dark mist was made, and a furnace smoking appeared, and a lamp of fire, and passed through those partings.

18In that day the Lord made a covenant of peace with Abram, and said, I shall give to thy seed this land, from the river of Egypt till to the great river Euphrates;

19 the lands of the Kenites, and Kenizzites, and Kadmonites,

20and Hittites, and Perizzites, and Rephaims,

21and Amorites, and Canaanites, and Girgashites, and Jebusites.

Learn More About Wycliffe's Bible with Modern Spelling

Genesis 15

God promised to give Abram a son

1Later on, after Abram saved Lot, Abram had a dream, and God talked to him in that dream. God said, “Abram, don’t be frightened, I will always keep you safe, so that nobody can ever hurt you, and I am going to give you lots of good things.”

2-3But Abram said, “Yes, God, you are very powerful. But look, I’ve got no son, so it doesn’t matter what you give me. You haven’t given me the one thing I really want. You haven’t given me any kids. So when I die, one of my work-men will get all my things. His name is Eliyezer. He is from Damascus.”

4Then Abram heard God talk to him again. God said, “I tell you, that work-man will not get all your things after you die. I am going to give you a son, and he will get all your things after you die.”

5Then God took Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and try to count all those stars. There are a lot of stars. You can’t count them all. Well, you will have a son, and later on lots of people will be born into his family, and later on they will be a real big family. And just like nobody can count the stars, nobody will be able to count all your family.”#Romans 4:18; Hebrews 11:12

6And Abram believed what God said, so God was really happy with him, and told him, “You believe me, so now I’m saying you are properly good, like you never did anything wrong.”#Romans 4:3, 9, 22; Galatians 3:6; Hebrews 11:11; James 2:23

God did a ceremony to make Abram sure about his promises

7Then God said to Abram, “I am your God. I am the one that brought you out of your home country, from the town called Ur, in Chaldia country. And I am going to give you this country here. It will be yours. You will own all this country.”

8Abram said, “I know you are very powerful, God, but how can I be really sure that I will get all this country?”

9So God said to Abram, “Bring me a cow that hasn’t had a baby, and a female goat, and a male sheep. All those animals have to be 3 years old. And I want you to bring me 2 different sorts of pigeons too.”

10Then Abram did what God told him. He killed those animals and birds, and he cut the animals in half. He put the halves of each animal on the ground in 2 lines facing each other. But he didn’t cut the birds in half. 11Then some hawks flew down and tried to eat the animals, but Abram chased them away.

12While the sun was going down, Abram went to sleep. It was a strong deep sleep. Then Abram had something like a dream. It was really dark for him, and he felt really frightened.#Job 4:13-14 13-15God said to Abram, “I want you to know for sure what will happen after you get really old. You don’t have to worry about anything. You see, you will live to be a very old man, and then, when you are dying, you will feel good inside, and your family will bury you right here, in this country. But I have to tell you something. After you die, your family will leave this country and move to another country that belongs to other people. Your family will live in that country, and later on, the other people in that country will make your family like prisoners, and your family will have to work very hard for them. Those people will do really bad things to your family for 400 years. After that, I will save your family from that hard time, and I will punish those people for doing bad things to your family. Then your family will leave that country, and they will take a lot of animals and things with them. They will be really rich.#Exodus 1:1-14; Acts 7:6 16And I will bring your family back here to this country. You see, the Amor tribe that are here in this country now, they do really bad things, and they are getting worse and worse. But I will not punish them yet. I will punish them later, after your grand-kids grow up and have grand-kids. Then I will do payback to the mob in this country for the bad things that they do. I will take their country from them, and I will give it to your family.” That’s what God told Abram.

17After the sun went down and it was dark, Abram saw a bucket full of fire, with smoke coming out of it, and he saw a burning stick with it. That bucket and stick moved along between the halves of those animals that Abram killed. 18-21That’s how God showed Abram that he was really going to do everything that he promised. God said to him again, “I am going to give your family all this country, from the river in Egypt in the south, right up to the big river called Euphrates in the north.

These are the tribes in this country now,

– the Ken tribe,

– the Keniz tribe,

– the Kadmon tribe,

– the Heth tribe,

– the Periz tribe,

– the Refa tribe,

– the Amor tribe,

– the Canaan tribe,

– the Girgash tribe,

– the Jebus tribe.

I will take this country away from all those tribes, and I will give it to your family.” God promised that to Abram.#Acts 7:5

Learn More About Plain English Version