⁸But Abram replied, “Lord GOD, how can I know that I will possess it?” ⁹And the LORD said to him, “Bring Me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a turtledove and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰So Abram brought all these to Him, split each of them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. The birds, however, he did not cut in half. ¹¹And the birds of prey descended on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. ¹²As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and suddenly great terror and darkness overwhelmed him. ¹³Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. ¹⁴But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will depart with many possessions. ¹⁵You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. ¹⁶In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” ¹⁷When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, behold, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the halves of the carcasses. ¹⁸On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land — from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates — ¹⁹the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, ²⁰Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, ²¹Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”