Asa prayed to the LORD his God, "O LORD, you can help a weak army as easily as a powerful one. Help us now, O LORD our God, because we are relying on you, and in your name we have come out to fight against this huge army. LORD, you are our God; no one can hope to defeat you."

"I will keep my promise to you and to your descendants in future generations as an everlasting covenant. I will be your God and the God of your descendants.

I will make you my own people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am the LORD your God when I set you free from slavery in Egypt.

Now, if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own people. The whole earth is mine, but you will be my chosen people,

So Moses went down and called the leaders of the people together and told them everything that the LORD had commanded him.

"I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt, where you were slaves.

There is no other nation on earth like Israel, whom you rescued from slavery to make them your own people. The great and wonderful things you did for them spread your fame throughout the world. You rescued your people from Egypt and drove out other nations as your people advanced.

"And now, O LORD, fulfill for all time the promise you made about me and my descendants, and do what you said you would.

I will send an angel to guide you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

how you yourself drove out the heathen and established your people in their land; how you punished the other nations and caused your own to prosper.

The LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "This is the country that I am going to give to your descendants." Then Abram built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

I am going to give you and your descendants all the land that you see, and it will be yours forever.

Then I took Abraham, your ancestor, from the land across the Euphrates and led him through the whole land of Canaan. I gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac,

I gave you a land that you had never worked and cities that you had not built. Now you are living there and eating grapes from vines that you did not plant, and olives from trees that you did not plant.'

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.

"But you, Israel my servant, you are the people that I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham, my friend.

Jesus said this and then added, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go and wake him up."

I do not call you servants any longer, because servants do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I heard from my Father.

And the scripture came true that said, "Abraham believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous." And so Abraham was called God's friend.