⁹ So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer,^(A) a goat and a ram, each three years old,^(B) along with a dove and a young pigeon.^(C)”

¹⁰ Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other;^(D) the birds, however, he did not cut in half.^{(E) 11} Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses,^(F) but Abram drove them away.

¹² As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep,^(G) and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years^(H) your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved^(I) and mistreated there. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out^(J) with great possessions.^{(K) 15} You, however, will go to your ancestors^(L) in peace and be buried at a good old age.^{(M) 16} In the fourth generation^(N) your descendants will come back here,^(O) for the sin of the Amorites^(P) has not yet reached its full measure.”

¹⁷ When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch^(Q) appeared and passed between the pieces.^(R)

¹⁸ Those who have violated my covenant^(A) and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces.^(B)

¹⁹ The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials,^(A) the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf,