How long after this Abram stayed in Egypt we are not told. But at length his wealth in cattle, and gold and silver, having materially increased, he quitted the country, and once more took up his abode on his former camping-ground between Bethel and Ai. Hitherto his nephew Lot had accompanied him in all his wanderings, but now the increasing numbers of their flocks and herds generated a quarrel between their respective herdsmen, and it was plainly necessary that they should separate. With characteristic generosity Abram bade his nephew take the first choice, and select for himself, whether on the left hand or the right, a place for his new abode. From the high mountain-range[26] to the east of Bethel, where they were then encamped, Lot _lifted up his eyes_ and looked down upon the wide and well-watered plain south of the Jordan, then a very _garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt_ (Gen. xiii. 10) they had so lately left. As yet no terrible convulsion had effaced the site of Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities of the plain. Fair and fertile the coveted possession stretched onwards unto Zoar, and in spite of the notorious wickedness of the inhabitants Lot chose it for his abode, and the two _separated themselves the one from the other_. Though Abram was thus left to wait alone for the fulfilment of the Promise, he was not forgotten by the God in whom he trusted. A more full and more definite promise was now vouchsafed to him. _Lift up thine eyes_, said the Almighty, _and look from place to place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever; and I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered_ (Gen. xiii. 14–17).