God's Third Covenant with Man
Abram c. 2000-1500 BC.
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    When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking brazier and a flaming torch, which passed between those pieces (of the animal sacrifice).

     It was on that occasion that the Lord make a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River (the Euphrates), the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”  (Genesis 15:17-21)

     When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said: "I am God the Almighty.  Walk in my presence and be blameless.  Between you and me I will establish my covenant, and I will multiply you exceedingly."  When Abram prostrated himself, God continued to speak to him:  "My covenant with you is this: you are to become the father of a host of nations.  No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations.  I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you.  I will maintain my covenant with you  and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.  I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God." (Genesis 17:1-8)

Abraham's Obligation
    Abram name change to Abraham. (Genesis 17:5)
    Circumcise every male. (Genesis 17:9-14)
    Sarai name change to Sarah. (Genesis 17:15-16)

     God replied: "Nevertheless, your wife Sarah is to bear you a son, and you shall call him Isaac.  I will maintain my covenant with him as an everlasting pact, to be his God and the God of his descendants after him.  As for Ishmael, I am heeding you: I hereby bless him.  I will make him fertile and will multiply him exceedingly.  He shall become the father of twelve chieftains, and I will make of him a great nation.  But my covenant I will maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you by this time next year.  (Genesis 17:19-21)

     Then he reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.  But the Lord's messenger called to him from heaven, "Abraham, Abraham!"  "Yes, Lord," he answered.  "Do not lay your hand on the boy," said the messenger.  "Do not do the least thing to him.  I know now how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son."  As Abraham looked about, he spied a ram caught by its horns in the thicket.  So he went and took the ram and offered it up as a holocaust in place of his son.  (Genesis 22:10-13)

     Again the Lord's messenger called to Abraham from heaven and said: "I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you acted as you did in not withholding from me your beloved son, I will bless you abundantly and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore; your descendants shall take possession of the gates of their enemies, and in your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing - all this because you obeyed my command."  (Genesis 22:15-18)   

Abraham's Obligation
    Human sacrifices no longer acceptable offerings. 

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