The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it.

The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him."

So the man named all the animals, the birds of the air, and the living creatures of the field, but for Adam no companion who corresponded to him was found.

But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?"

So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.

Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

But the Lord said to him, "All right then, if anyone kills Cain, Cain will be avenged seven times as much." Then the Lord put a special mark on Cain so that no one who found him would strike him down.

And Adam had marital relations with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son. She named him Seth, saying, "God has given me another child in place of Abel because Cain killed him."

When Adam had lived 130 years he fathered a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and he named him Seth.

Enoch walked with God, and then he disappeared because God took him away.

He named him Noah, saying, "This one will bring us comfort from our labor and from the painful toil of our hands because of the ground that the Lord has cursed."

And Noah did all that God commanded him -- he did indeed.

And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.

male and female, came into the ark to Noah, just as God had commanded him.

Those that entered were male and female, just as God commanded him. Then the Lord shut him in.

So the Lord destroyed every living thing that was on the surface of the ground, including people, animals, creatures that creep along the ground, and birds of the sky. They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived.

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and domestic animals that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to blow over the earth and the waters receded.

When the dove returned to him in the evening, there was a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak! Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.

He waited another seven days and sent the dove out again, but it did not return to him this time.

When Noah awoke from his drunken stupor he learned what his youngest son had done to him.

So Abram left, just as the Lord had told him to do, and Lot went with him. (Now Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.)

The Lord appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." So Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

Pharaoh gave his men orders about Abram, and so they expelled him, along with his wife and all his possessions.

So Abram went up from Egypt into the Negev. He took his wife and all his possessions with him, as well as Lot.

After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet Abram in the Valley of Shaveh (known as the King's Valley).

But look, the word of the Lord came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but instead a son who comes from your own body will be your heir."

The Lord took him outside and said, "Gaze into the sky and count the stars -- if you are able to count them!" Then he said to him, "So will your descendants be."

The Lord said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess."

The Lord said to him, "Take for me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon."

So Abram took all these for him and then cut them in two and placed each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in half.

When the sun went down, Abram fell sound asleep, and great terror overwhelmed him.

So Sarai said to Abram, "Since the Lord has prevented me from having children, have sexual relations with my servant. Perhaps I can have a family by her." Abram did what Sarai told him.

Then the Lord's angel said to her, "You are now pregnant and are about to give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your painful groans.

He will be a wild donkey of a man. He will be hostile to everyone, and everyone will be hostile to him. He will live away from his brothers."

When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, "I am the sovereign God. Walk before me and be blameless.

Abram bowed down with his face to the ground, and God said to him,

God said, "No, Sarah your wife is going to bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will confirm my covenant with him as a perpetual covenant for his descendants after him.

As for Ishmael, I have heard you. I will indeed bless him, make him fruitful, and give him a multitude of descendants. He will become the father of twelve princes; I will make him into a great nation.

When he finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.

Abraham took his son Ishmael and every male in his household (whether born in his house or bought with money) and circumcised them on that very same day, just as God had told him to do.

All the men of his household, whether born in his household or bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.

Abraham looked up and saw three men standing across from him. When he saw them he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

Then they asked him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" He replied, "There, in the tent."

One of them said, "I will surely return to you when the season comes round again, and your wife Sarah will have a son!" (Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, not far behind him.

I have chosen him so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. Then the Lord will give to Abraham what he promised him."

Abraham spoke to him again, "What if forty are found there?" He replied, "I will not do it for the sake of the forty."

But he urged them persistently, so they turned aside with him and entered his house. He prepared a feast for them, including bread baked without yeast, and they ate.

Lot went outside to them, shutting the door behind him.

Come, let's make our father drunk with wine so we can have sexual relations with him and preserve our family line through our father."

So that night they made their father drunk with wine, and the older daughter came and had sexual relations with her father. But he was not aware that she had sexual relations with him and then got up.

So in the morning the older daughter said to the younger, "Since I had sexual relations with my father last night, let's make him drunk again tonight. Then you go and have sexual relations with him so we can preserve our family line through our father."

So they made their father drunk that night as well, and the younger one came and had sexual relations with him. But he was not aware that she had sexual relations with him and then got up.

The older daughter gave birth to a son and named him Moab. He is the ancestor of the Moabites of today.

The younger daughter also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-Ammi. He is the ancestor of the Ammonites of today.

But God appeared to Abimelech in a dream at night and said to him, "You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken, for she is someone else's wife."

Then in the dream God replied to him, "Yes, I know that you have done this with a clear conscience. That is why I have kept you from sinning against me and why I did not allow you to touch her.

Abimelech summoned Abraham and said to him, "What have you done to us? What sin did I commit against you that would cause you to bring such great guilt on me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done!"

So Abimelech gave sheep, cattle, and male and female servants to Abraham. He also gave his wife Sarah back to him.

So Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the appointed time that God had told him.

Abraham named his son -- whom Sarah bore to him -- Isaac.

When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him just as God had commanded him to do.

(Now Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.)

She went on to say, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have given birth to a son for him in his old age!"

Then she went and sat down by herself across from him at quite a distance, about a bowshot away; for she thought, "I refuse to watch the child die." So she sat across from him and wept uncontrollably.

Get up! Help the boy up and hold him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation."

He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother found a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Some time after these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am!" Abraham replied.

God said, "Take your son -- your only son, whom you love, Isaac -- and go to the land of Moriah! Offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will indicate to you."

Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants with him, along with his son Isaac. When he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he started out for the place God had spoken to him about.

When they came to the place God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.

But the Lord's angel called to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am!" he answered.

"Do not harm the boy!" the angel said. "Do not do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God because you did not withhold your son, your only son, from me."

Abraham looked up and saw behind him a ram caught in the bushes by its horns. So he went over and got the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bore him children -- Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.

if he will sell me the cave of Machpelah that belongs to him; it is at the end of his field. Let him sell it to me publicly for the full price, so that I may own it as a burial site."

Ephron answered Abraham, saying to him,

So Abraham agreed to Ephron's price and weighed out for him the price that Ephron had quoted in the hearing of the sons of Heth -- 400 pieces of silver, according to the standard measurement at the time.

Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed him in everything.

The servant asked him, "What if the woman is not willing to come back with me to this land? Must I then take your son back to the land from which you came?"

"Be careful never to take my son back there!" Abraham told him.

"Drink, my lord," she replied, and quickly lowering her jug to her hands, she gave him a drink.

She said to him, "I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom Milcah bore to Nahor.

Laban said to him, "Come, you who are blessed by the Lord! Why are you standing out here when I have prepared the house and a place for the camels?"

So Abraham's servant went to the house and unloaded the camels. Straw and feed were given to the camels, and water was provided so that he and the men who were with him could wash their feet.

"The Lord has richly blessed my master and he has become very wealthy. The Lord has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, male and female servants, and camels and donkeys.

My master's wife Sarah bore a son to him when she was old, and my master has given him everything he owns.

After this, he and the men who were with him ate a meal and stayed there overnight. When they got up in the morning, he said, "Let me leave now so I can return to my master."

She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.

His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar, the Hethite.

The first came out reddish all over, like a hairy garment, so they named him Esau.

When his brother came out with his hand clutching Esau's heel, they named him Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.

But Jacob said, "Swear an oath to me now." So Esau swore an oath to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.

When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he replied, "She is my sister." He was afraid to say, "She is my wife," for he thought to himself, "The men of this place will kill me to get Rebekah because she is very beautiful."

When Isaac planted in that land, he reaped in the same year a hundred times what he had sown, because the Lord blessed him.

He had so many sheep and cattle and such a great household of servants that the Philistines became jealous of him.

the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, "The water belongs to us!" So Isaac named the well Esek because they argued with him about it.

The Lord appeared to him that night and said, "I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham."

Now Abimelech had come to him from Gerar along with Ahuzzah his friend and Phicol the commander of his army.

That day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well they had dug. "We've found water," they reported.

When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he was almost blind, he called his older son Esau and said to him, "My son!" "Here I am!" Esau replied.