The LORD brought him outside, and said, *Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.* He said to Avram, *So shall your seed be.*
that I will bless you greatly, and I will multiply your seed greatly like the stars of the heavens, and like the sand which is on the seashore. Your seed will possess the gate of his enemies.
Your seed will be as the dust of the earth, and you will spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. In you and in your seed will all the families of the earth be blessed.
But David didn't take the number of them from twenty years old and under, because the LORD had said he would increase Yisra'el like the stars of the sky.
Their children also multiplied you as the stars of the sky, and brought them into the land concerning which you did say to their fathers, that they should go in to possess it.
Remember Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yisra'el, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, 'I will multiply your seed as the stars of the sky, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.'*
I caused you to multiply as that which grows in the field, and you increased and grew great, and you attained to excellent ornament; your breasts were fashioned, and your hair was grown; yet you were naked and bare.
You shall answer and say before the LORD your God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father; and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there, few in number; and he became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.