This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created -- when the Lord God made the earth and heavens.

but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die."

for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil."

When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

When he drove the man out, he placed on the eastern side of the orchard in Eden angelic sentries who used the flame of a whirling sword to guard the way to the tree of life.

When you try to cultivate the ground it will no longer yield its best for you. You will be a homeless wanderer on the earth."

This is the record of the family line of Adam. When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness of God.

He created them male and female; when they were created, he blessed them and named them "humankind."

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

When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh.

When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan.

When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel.

When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared.

When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch.

When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah.

When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech.

When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son.

When humankind began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them,

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days (and also after this) when the sons of God were having sexual relations with the daughters of humankind, who gave birth to their children. They were the mighty heroes of old, the famous men.

Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters engulfed the earth.

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.

When the rainbow is in the clouds, I will notice it and remember the perpetual covenant between God and all living creatures of all kinds that are on the earth."

When he drank some of the wine, he got drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent.

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

When the people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

This is the account of Shem. Shem was 100 old when he became the father of Arphaxad, two years after the flood.

When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah.

When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber.

When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg.

When Peleg had lived 30 years, he became the father of Reu.

When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug.

When Serug had lived 30 years, he became the father of Nahor.

When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah.

When Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (the son of Haran), and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram's wife, and with them he set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. When they came to Haran, they settled there.

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.)

When the Egyptians see you they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me but will keep you alive.

When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.

When Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. So Abram's wife was taken into the household of Pharaoh,

Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits. When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell into them, but some survivors fled to the hills.

They also took Abram's nephew Lot and his possessions when they left, for Lot was living in Sodom.

When Abram heard that his nephew had been taken captive, he mobilized his 318 trained men who had been born in his household, and he pursued the invaders as far as Dan.

When birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

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

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking firepot with a flaming torch passed between the animal parts.

Then Sarai said to Abram, "You have brought this wrong on me! I allowed my servant to have sexual relations with you, but when she realized that she was pregnant, she despised me. May the Lord judge between you and me!"

(Now Abram was 86 years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.)

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

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

Now Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised;

his son Ishmael was thirteen years old when he was circumcised.

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.

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.

So Sarah laughed to herself, thinking, "After I am worn out will I have pleasure, especially when my husband is old too?"

The Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Will I really have a child when I am old?'

Is anything impossible for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son."

When the men got up to leave, they looked out over Sodom. (Now Abraham was walking with them to see them on their way.)

The Lord went on his way when he had finished speaking to Abraham. Then Abraham returned home.

The two angels came to Sodom in the evening while Lot was sitting in the city's gateway. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face toward the ground.

At dawn the angels hurried Lot along, saying, "Get going! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be destroyed when the city is judged!"

When Lot hesitated, the men grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters because the Lord had compassion on them. They led them away and placed them outside the city.

When they had brought them outside, they said, "Run for your lives! Don't look behind you or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains or you will be destroyed!"

So when God destroyed the cities of the region, God honored Abraham's request. He removed Lot from the midst of the destruction when he destroyed the cities Lot had lived in.

Early in the morning Abimelech summoned all his servants. When he told them about all these things, they were terrified.

When God made me wander from my father's house, I told her, 'This is what you can do to show your loyalty to me: Every place we go, say about me, "He is my brother."'"

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.)

When the water in the skin was gone, she shoved the child under one of the shrubs.

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.

He made the camels kneel down by the well outside the city. It was evening, the time when the women would go out to draw water.

When she had done so, she said, "I'll draw water for your camels too, until they have drunk as much as they want."

When he saw the bracelets on his sister's wrists and the nose ring and heard his sister Rebekah say, "This is what the man said to me," he went out to meet the man. There he was, standing by the camels near the spring.

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?"

When food was served, he said, "I will not eat until I have said what I want to say." "Tell us," Laban said.

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

When I came to the spring today, I prayed, 'O Lord, God of my master Abraham, if you have decided to make my journey successful, may events unfold as follows:

Here I am, standing by the spring. When the young woman goes out to draw water, I'll say, "Give me a little water to drink from your jug."

When Abraham's servant heard their words, he bowed down to the ground before the Lord.

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."

When Isaac was forty years old, he married Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean.

When the time came for Rebekah to give birth, there were twins in her womb.

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.

When the boys grew up, Esau became a skilled hunter, a man of the open fields, but Jacob was an even-tempered man, living in tents.

Now Jacob cooked some stew, and when Esau came in from the open fields, he was famished.

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.

When Isaac's servants dug in the valley and discovered a well with fresh flowing water there,

When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, as well as Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite.

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.

Now Rebekah had been listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went out to the open fields to hunt down some wild game and bring it back,

So Jacob went over and kissed him. When Isaac caught the scent of his clothing, he blessed him, saying, "Yes, my son smells like the scent of an open field which the Lord has blessed.

Isaac had just finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had scarcely left his father's presence, when his brother Esau returned from the hunt.

When Esau heard his father's words, he wailed loudly and bitterly. He said to his father, "Bless me too, my father!"

You will live by your sword but you will serve your brother. When you grow restless, you will tear off his yoke from your neck."

When Rebekah heard what her older son Esau had said, she quickly summoned her younger son Jacob and told him, "Look, your brother Esau is planning to get revenge by killing you.

When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone off the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place over the well's mouth.

When Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Laban, and the sheep of his uncle Laban, he went over and rolled the stone off the mouth of the well and watered the sheep of his uncle Laban.

When Jacob explained to Rachel that he was a relative of her father and the son of Rebekah, she ran and told her father.

When Laban heard this news about Jacob, his sister's son, he rushed out to meet him. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Jacob told Laban how he was related to him.