Genesis 15:14-16

Contemporary English Version

^13-15^(A) Then the Lord said:

Abram, you will live to an old age and die in peace.

But I solemnly promise that your descendants will live as foreigners in a land that doesn't belong to them. They will be forced into slavery and abused for 400 years. But I will terribly punish the nation that enslaves them, and they will leave with many possessions.

¹⁶Four generations later,^[a] your descendants will return here and take this land, because only then will the people who live here^[b] be so sinful that they deserve to be punished.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

15.16 Four generations later: This may refer to the “400 years” of verses 13-15.
15.16 people who live here: The Hebrew text has “Amorites,” a name sometimes used of the people who lived in Palestine before the Israelites.