And God made the expanse [of sky] and separated the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so [just as He commanded].

Then God said, “Let Us (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) make man in Our image, according to Our likeness [not physical, but a spiritual personality and moral likeness]; and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, and over the entire earth, and over everything that creeps and crawls on the earth.”

And God blessed them [granting them certain authority] and said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subjugate it [putting it under your power]; and rule over (dominate) the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

and to all the animals on the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that moves on the ground—to everything in which there is the breath of life—I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so [because He commanded it].

So the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts (inhabitants).

This is the history of [the origin of] the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day [that is, days of creation] that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens—

then the Lord God formed [that is, created the body of] man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being [an individual complete in body and spirit].

And [in that garden] the Lord God caused to grow from the ground every tree that is desirable and pleasing to the sight and good (suitable, pleasant) for food; the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the [experiential] knowledge (recognition) of [the difference between] good and evil.

The first [river] is named Pishon; it flows around the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.

The gold of that land is good; bdellium (a fragrant, valuable resin) and the onyx stone are found there.

So the Lord God formed out of the ground every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

And the man gave names to all the livestock, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for Adam there was not found a helper [that was] suitable (a companion) for him.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and while he slept, He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.

And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man He made (fashioned, formed) into a woman, and He brought her and presented her to the man.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed or embarrassed.

For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened [that is, you will have greater awareness], and you will be like God, knowing [the difference between] good and evil.”

Then the eyes of the two of them were opened [that is, their awareness increased], and they knew that they were naked; and they fastened fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

But the Lord God called to Adam, and said to him, “Where are you?”

God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten [fruit] from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all the cattle,
And more than any animal of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And dust you shall eat
All the days of your life.

“And I will put enmity (open hostility)
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed (offspring) and her Seed;
He shall [fatally] bruise your head,
And you shall [only] bruise His heel.”

To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth;
In pain you will give birth to children;
Yet your desire and longing will be for your husband,
And he will rule [with authority] over you and be responsible for you.”

Then to Adam the Lord God said, “Because you have listened [attentively] to the voice of your wife, and have eaten [fruit] from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’;

The ground is [now] under a curse because of you;
In sorrow and toil you shall eat [the fruit] of it
All the days of your life.

“By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread
Until you return to the ground,
For from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.”

but for Cain and his offering He had no respect. So Cain became extremely angry (indignant), and he looked annoyed and hostile.

And the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you so angry? And why do you look annoyed?

If you do well [believing Me and doing what is acceptable and pleasing to Me], will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well [but ignore My instruction], sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you [to overpower you], but you must master it.”

Cain talked with Abel his brother [about what God had said]. And when they were [alone, working] in the field, Cain attacked Abel his brother and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he [lied and] said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s [innocent] blood is crying out to Me from the ground [for justice].

And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s [shed] blood from your hand.

Behold, You have driven me out this day from the face of the land; and from Your face (presence) I will be hidden, and I will be a fugitive and an [aimless] vagabond on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

And the Lord said to him, “Therefore, whoever kills Cain, a sevenfold vengeance [that is, punishment seven times worse] shall be taken on him [by Me].” And the Lord set a [protective] mark (sign) on Cain, so that no one who found (met) him would kill him.

He created them male and female, and blessed them and named them Mankind at the time they were created.

So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.

He named him Noah, saying, “This one shall bring us rest and comfort from our work and from the [dreadful] toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord cursed.”

So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years, and he died.

Now it happened, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them,

that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and desirable; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose and desired.

There were Nephilim (men of stature, notorious men) on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God lived with the daughters of men, and they gave birth to their children. These were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown (great reputation, fame).

So the Lord said, “I will destroy (annihilate) mankind whom I have created from the surface of the earth—not only man, but the animals and the crawling things and the birds of the air—because it [deeply] grieves Me [to see mankind’s sin] and I regret that I have made them.”

Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make in it rooms (stalls, pens, coops, nests, cages, compartments) and coat it inside and out with pitch (bitumen).

This is the way you are to make it: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits (450’ x 75’ x 45’).

You shall make a window [for light and ventilation] for the ark, and finish it to at least a cubit (eighteen inches) from the top—and set the [entry] door of the ark in its side; and you shall make it with lower, second and third decks.

For behold, I, even I, will bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy all life under the heavens in which there is the breath and spirit of life; everything that is on the land shall die.

But I will establish My covenant (solemn promise, formal agreement) with you; and you shall come into the ark—you and your [three] sons and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

Then the Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you with all your household, for you [alone] I have seen as righteous (doing what is right) before Me in this generation.

Of every clean animal you shall take with you seven pair, the male and his female, and of animals that are not clean, two each the male and his female;

also of the birds of the air, seven pair, the male and the female, to keep the offspring alive on the surface of the earth.

Noah was six hundred years old when the flood (deluge) of water came on the earth [covering all of the land].

Of clean animals and animals that are not clean and birds and fowls and everything that crawls on the ground,

And after the seven days [God released the rain and] the floodwaters came on the earth.

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, on that same day all the fountains of the great deep [subterranean waters] burst open, and the windows and floodgates of the heavens were opened.

So they went into the ark with Noah, two by two of all living beings in which there was the breath and spirit of life.

The waters prevailed so greatly and were so mighty and overwhelming on the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.

[In fact] the waters became fifteen cubits higher [than the highest ground], and the mountains were covered.

Everything on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath and spirit of life, died.

God destroyed (blotted out, wiped away) every living thing that was on the surface of the earth; man and animals and the crawling things and the birds of the heavens were destroyed from the land. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive.

The waters covered [all of] the earth for a hundred and fifty days (five months).

And God remembered and thought kindly of Noah and every living thing and all the animals that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind blow over the land, and the waters receded.

Also the fountains of the deep [subterranean waters] and the windows of the heavens were closed, the [pouring] rain from the sky was restrained,

The waters continued to decrease until the tenth month; on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains were seen.

and he sent out a raven, which flew here and there until the waters were dried up from the earth.

But the dove found no place on which to rest the sole of her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were [still] on the face of the entire earth. So he reached out his hand and took the dove, and brought her into the ark.

Now in the six hundred and first year [of Noah’s life], on the first day of the first month, the waters were drying up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and the surface of the ground was drying.

“Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives with you.

So Noah went out, and his wife and his sons and their wives with him [after being in the ark one year and ten days].

And Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every [ceremonially] clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

The fear and the terror of you shall be [instinctive] in every animal of the land and in every bird of the air; and together with everything that moves on the ground, and with all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hand.

For your lifeblood I will most certainly require an accounting; from every animal [that kills a person] I will require it. And from man, from every man’s brother [that is, anyone who murders] I will require the life of man.

“Now behold, I am establishing My covenant (binding agreement, solemn promise) with you and with your descendants after you

and with every living creature that is with you—the birds, the livestock, and the wild animals of the earth along with you, of everything that comes out of the ark—every living creature of the earth.

I will establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the water of a flood, nor shall there ever again be a flood to destroy and ruin the earth.”

I set My rainbow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.

and I will [compassionately] remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again will the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.

When the rainbow is in the clouds and I look at it, I will [solemnly] remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

And God said to Noah, “This [rainbow] is the sign of the covenant (solemn pledge, binding agreement) which I have established between Me and all living things on the earth.”

The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth. Ham would become the father of Canaan.

These are the three sons of Noah, and from these [men] the whole earth was populated and scattered with inhabitants.

So Shem and Japheth took a robe and put it on both their shoulders, and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away so that they did not see their father’s nakedness.

So all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died.

These are the records of the generations (descendants) of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and the sons born to them after the flood:

From these, [the people of] the coastlands of the nations were separated and spread into their lands, every one according to his own language, according to their constituent groups (families), and into their nations:

From that land Nimrod went to Assyria, and built Nineveh, and Rehoboth-Ir, and Calah,

These are the descendants of Ham according to their constituent groups, according to their languages, by their lands, and by their nations.

Also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber [including the Hebrews], the older brother of Japheth, children were born.

Two sons were born to Eber; the name of one was Peleg (division), for [the inhabitants of] the earth were divided in his days; and his brother’s name was Joktan.

and Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan.

These are Shem’s descendants according to their constituent groups (families), according to their languages, by their lands, according to their nations.

These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their descendants, by their nations; and from these [people] the nations were separated and spread abroad on the earth after the flood.

And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one [unified] people, and they all have the same language. This is only the beginning of what they will do [in rebellion against Me], and now no evil thing they imagine they can do will be impossible for them.

Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went out together to go from Ur of the Chaldeans into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran [about five hundred and fifty miles northwest of Ur], they settled there.

Now [in Haran] the Lord had said to Abram,

“Go away from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father’s house,
To the land which I will show you;

And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you [abundantly],
And make your name great (exalted, distinguished);
And you shall be a blessing [a source of great good to others];

And I will bless (do good for, benefit) those who bless you,
And I will curse [that is, subject to My wrath and judgment] the one who curses (despises, dishonors, has contempt for) you.
And in you all the families (nations) of the earth will be blessed.”

Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the [great] terebinth (oak) tree of Moreh. Now the Canaanites were in the land at that time.

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” So Abram built an altar there to [honor] the Lord who had appeared to him.

And when he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “Listen: I know that you are a beautiful woman;

Please tell them that you are my sister so that things will go well for me for your sake, and my life will be spared because of you.”