Iuni 26, 2013, Faitauga

Kenese 15:1-12, 17-18

1 Some time later, the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision: Aua e te fefe, Aperamo! I am your shield and shall give you a very great reward.

2 ‘Lord Yahweh,’ Abram replied, ‘what use are your gifts, as I am going on my way childless? . . .

3 Since you have given me no offspring,’ Abram continued, ‘a member of my household willbe my heir.’

4 Then Yahweh’s word came to him in reply, ‘Such a one will not be your heir; no, your heirwill be the issue of your own body.’

5 Then taking him outside, o lana tala lea, ‘Look up at the sky and count the stars if you can. Just so will your descendants be,’ he told him.

6 Abram put his faith in Yahweh and this was reckoned to him as uprightness.

7 He then said to him, ‘I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldaeans to give you this country as your possession.’

8 ‘Lord Yahweh,’ Abram replied, ‘how can I know that I shall possess it?’

9 Sa ia fai atu ia te ia, ‘Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon.’

10 He brought him all these, split the animals down the middle and placed each half opposite the other; but the birds he did not divide.

11 And whenever birds of prey swooped down on the carcases, Abram drove them off.

12 O lenei, as the sun was on the point of setting, a trance fell on Abram, and a deep dark dread descended on him.

17 When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passing between the animals’ pieces.

18 That day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram in these terms: ‘To your descendants I give this country, from the River of Egypt to the Great River, the River Euphrates,