Then and there the LORD made a covenant with Abram. He said, "I promise to give your descendants all this land from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates River,

I will make my covenant with you and give you many descendants."

Live here, and I will be with you and bless you. I am going to give all this territory to you and to your descendants. I will keep the promise I made to your father Abraham.

And there was the LORD standing beside him. "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham and Isaac," he said. "I will give to you and to your descendants this land on which you are lying.

They will be as numerous as the specks of dust on the earth. They will extend their territory in all directions, and through you and your descendants I will bless all the nations.

And God said to him, "I am Almighty God. Have many children. Nations will be descended from you, and you will be the ancestor of kings.

Tell the Israelites that I, the LORD, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have sent you to them. This is my name forever; this is what all future generations are to call me.

You found that he was faithful to you, and you made a covenant with him. You promised to give him the land of the Canaanites, the land of the Hittites and the Amorites, the land of the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Girgashites, to be a land where his descendants would live. You kept your promise, because you are faithful.

He said he would show mercy to our ancestors and remember his sacred covenant.

With a solemn oath to our ancestor Abraham he promised to rescue us from our enemies and allow us to serve him without fear,

The promises of God through his prophets are for you, and you share in the covenant which God made with your ancestors. As he said to Abraham, 'Through your descendants I will bless all the people on earth.'

My friends, I am going to use an everyday example: when two people agree on a matter and sign an agreement, no one can break it or add anything to it.

What I mean is that God made a covenant with Abraham and promised to keep it. The Law, which was given four hundred and thirty years later, cannot break that covenant and cancel God's promise.

When God made his promise to Abraham, he made a vow to do what he had promised. Since there was no one greater than himself, he used his own name when he made his vow.

Abraham was patient, and so he received what God had promised.

To those who were to receive what he promised, God wanted to make it very clear that he would never change his purpose; so he added his vow to the promise.