Jubilees 14

Abram's Promise of an Heir

14 And after these events, in the fourth year of this week, in the new moon of the third month, the voice of the Lord came to Abram in a dream, saying: "Fear not, Abram, for I am thy defender and thy exceeding great reward."

2And he said: "O Lord, Lord, what wilt thou give me, and I have no son; and the son of Masek, the son of my maid-servant, this Eleazer of Damascus, he will be my heir; but to me thou hast not given any seed."

3And he said to him: "This one will not be thy heir, but he that comes from thy body, he will be thy heir."

4And he took him without and said to him: "Look upon the heavens and see the stars of heaven, if thou art able to count them." 5And he looked at the heavens and saw the stars; and he said to him: "Thus shall be thy seed."

6And he believed the Lord, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

7And he said to him: "I am the Lord thy God, who have brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, that I might give thee the land of Canaan for an eternal possession, and I will be to thee and thy children after thee a God."

8And he said: "O Lord, Lord, by what am I to know that I shall inherit it?"

9And he said to him: "Take to thyself a heifer of three years, and a goat of three years, and a sheep of three years, and a turtledove and a pigeon."

10And he took all these in the middle of the month, and he dwelt near the oak Mamre, which is near Hebron, and he built there an altar, and sacrificed all these and poured their blood upon the altar, and divided them into halves and laid them opposite each other; but the birds he did not divide. 12And birds descended upon the pieces, and Abram drove them away and would not suffer the birds to touch them. 13And it happened when the sun had set, a stupor fell upon Abram, and, behold, a great horror of darkness fell upon him, and it was spoken to Abram: "Know, in truth that thy seed will be a stranger in a strange land, and they will make them servants and oppress them four hundred years. 14But the nation which, they serve I will judge, and after that they will go out from there with many possessions. 15And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace and shalt be buried in a good age. 16And in the fourth generation they shall return hither, for not yet are the sins of the Amorites completed."

"To Thy Seed I Will Give this Land"

17And he awoke from his sleep, and he arose, and the sun had set, and there was a flame, and, behold, an oven was smoking, and a flame of fire passed through between the pieces. 18And on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: "To thy seed I will give this land from the river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates, the Kenites and the Kenizzites and the Kadmonites and the Perizzites and the Rephaimites and the Ewites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Girgashites."

19And Abram went and took up the pieces and the birds and the fruit and the drink offerings, and the fire devoured them. 20And on that day we made a covenant with Abram according to the covenant which he had made in this month with Noah; and Abram renewed the festival and ordinance for himself unto eternity.

21And Abram rejoiced and told all these things to Sara, his wife, and he believed that he would have seed; but she did not bring forth. And Sara advised her husband Abram, and said to him: "Go in to Hagar, my Egyptian maid; it is possible that he will raise up for thee seed from her." 22And Abram obeyed the voice of Sara, his wife, and said to her, "Do it!" and Sara took her Egyptian maid Hagar and gave her to Abram, her husband, that she should become his wife. 23And he went in to her, and she conceived and bore him a son, and he called his name Ishmael, in the fifth year of this week: and this was the eighty-sixth year of the life of Abram.