He brought him outside and said, “Look up toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So will your descendants be.”
I will indeed bless you and I will indeed multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens and as the sand that is on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gate of their enemies.
I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of the heavens and will give your descendants all these lands. By your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed,
because of the God of your father who will help you, and by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings from heaven above, blessings from the deep that lies beneath, the blessings of the breasts and the womb.
Joab said to the king, “May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, in the sight of my lord the king; but why does my lord the king so desire this thing?”
But Joab said, “May the Lord increase the number of His people a hundred times more. My lord the king, are not all of them my lord’s servants? Why then should my lord require this? Why should it bring guilt on Israel?”
Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give to your descendants, and they will inherit it forever.’ ”
I have caused you to multiply as the bud of the field, and you have increased and become tall, and you have reached the age of fine ornaments. Your breasts were fashioned and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare.
See, I have set the land before you. Go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them.”