AFTER these things, in the fourth year of this week, on the New Moon of the third month, the Word of Yahuah came to Avram in a dream, saying: 'Fear not, Avram; I am your defender, and your reward will be exceeding great.'
And he said: Yahuah, Yahuah, what will you give me, seeing I go hence childless, and the son of Maseq, the son of my handmaid, is the Damascan Eliy`ezer: he will be my heir, and to me you have given no seed.'
And he said unto him: 'This man will not be your heir, but one that will come out of your own generation; he will be your heir.'
And he brought him forth abroad, and said unto him: 'Look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them.'
And he looked toward heaven, and beheld the stars. And he said unto him: 'So shall your seed be.'
And he believed in Yahuah, and it was counted to him for righteousness.
And he said unto him: I am Yahuah that brought you out of Ur of the Kasdiym, to give you the land of the Kena`aniym to possess it forever; and I will be Elohiym unto you and to your seed after you.
And he said: Yahuah, Yahuah, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?'
And he said unto him: 'Take me a heifer of three years, and a goat of three years, and a sheep of three years, and a turtle dove, and a pigeon.'
And he took all these in the middle of the month and he dwelt at the oak of Mamre, which is near Chevron.
And he built there an altar, and sacrificed all these; and he poured their blood upon the altar, and divided them in the midst, and laid them over against each other; but the birds divided he not.
And birds came down upon the pieces, and Avram drove them away, and did not suffer the birds to touch them.
And it came to pass, when the sun had set, that an ecstasy fell upon Avram, and lo! a horror of great darkness fell upon him, and it was said unto Avram: 'Know of a surety that your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and they shall bring them into bondage, and afflict them four hundred years.
And the nation also to whom they will be in bondage will I judge, and after that they shall come forth thence with much substance.
And you shall go to your fathers in peace, and be buried in a good old age.
But in the fourth generation they shall return hither; for the iniquity of the Emoriym is not yet full.'
And he awoke from his sleep, and he arose, and the sun had set; and there was a flame, and behold! a furnace was smoking, and a flame of fire passed between the pieces.
And on that day Yahuah cut a covenant with Avram, saying: To your seed will I give this land, from the river of Mitsrayim unto the great river, the river Perath, the Qeyniyiym, the Qenizziym, the Qadmoniym, the Perizziym, and the Repha'iym, the Paqoriym, and the Chivviym, and the Emoriym, and the Kena`aniym, and the Girgashiym, and the Yevuciym.
And the day passed, and Avram offered the pieces, and the birds, and their fruit offerings, and their drink offerings, and the fire devoured them.
And on that day we cut a covenant with Avram, according as we had covenanted with Noach in this month; and Avram renewed the feast and ordinance for himself forever.
And Avram rejoiced, and made all these things known to Sarai his woman; and he believed that he would have seed, but she did not bear.
And Sarai advised her man Avram, and said unto him: 'Go in unto Ha'ger, my Mitsriy maid: it may be that I shall build up seed unto you by her.'
And Avram hearkened unto the voice of Sarai his woman, and said unto her: Do so. And Sarai took Ha'ger, her maid, the Mitsriy, and gave her to Avram, her man, to be his woman.
And he went in unto her, and she conceived and bore him a son, and he called his name Yishma'el, in the fifth year of this week; and this was the eighty sixth year in the life of Avram.