13-16 God said to Abram, “Know this: your descendants will live as outsiders in a land not theirs; they’ll be enslaved and beaten down for 400 years. Then I’ll punish their slave masters; your offspring will march out of there loaded with plunder. But not you; you’ll have a long and full life and die a good and peaceful death. Not until the fourth generation will your descendants return here; sin is still a thriving business among the Amorites.”

17-21 When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch moved between the split carcasses. That’s when God made a covenant with Abram: “I’m giving this land to your children, from the Nile River in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Assyria—the country of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

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15 You, however, will go to your ancestors(A) in peace and be buried at a good old age.(B) 16 In the fourth generation(C) your descendants will come back here,(D) for the sin of the Amorites(E) has not yet reached its full measure.”

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

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