Springs would well up from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was asleep, he took part of the man's side and closed up the place with flesh.

So the Lord said, "I will wipe humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth -- everything from humankind to animals, including creatures that move on the ground and birds of the air, for I regret that I have made them."

For in seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the ground every living thing that I have made."

and sent out a raven; it kept flying back and forth until the waters had dried up on the earth.

In Noah's six hundred and first year, in the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth, and Noah removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.

Shem and Japheth took the garment and placed it on their shoulders. Then they walked in backwards and covered up their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so they did not see their father's nakedness.

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

Lot looked up and saw the whole region of the Jordan. He noticed that all of it was well-watered (before the Lord obliterated Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, all the way to Zoar.

Get up and walk throughout the land, for I will give it to you."

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

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

What if there are fifty godly people in the city? Will you really wipe it out and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty godly people who are in it?

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.

Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the Lord.

He looked out toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of that region. As he did so, he saw the smoke rising up from the land like smoke from a furnace.

Lot went up from Zoar with his two daughters and settled in the mountains because he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters.

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 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.

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

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.

So he said to his servants, "You two stay here with the donkey while the boy and I go up there. We will worship and then return to you."

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.

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.

Then she died in Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.

Then Abraham got up from mourning his dead wife and said to the sons of Heth,

Abraham got up and bowed down to the local people, the sons of Heth.

Now the young woman was very beautiful. She was a virgin; no man had ever had sexual relations with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jug, and came back up.

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."

He went out to relax in the field in the early evening. Then he looked up and saw that there were camels approaching.

Rebekah looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel

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.

Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and lentil stew; Esau ate and drank, then got up and went out. So Esau despised his birthright.

So the Philistines took dirt and filled up all the wells that his father's servants had dug back in the days of his father Abraham.

Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug back in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after Abraham died. Isaac gave these wells the same names his father had given them.

From there Isaac went up to Beer Sheba.

So his mother told him, "Any curse against you will fall on me, my son! Just obey me! Go and get them for me!"

Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau, your firstborn. I've done as you told me. Now sit up and eat some of my wild game so that you can bless me."

He also prepared some tasty food and brought it to his father. Esau said to him, "My father, get up and eat some of your son's wild game. Then you can bless me."

Esau exclaimed, "'Jacob' is the right name for him! He has tripped me up two times! He took away my birthright, and now, look, he has taken away my blessing!" Then he asked, "Have you not kept back a blessing for me?"

and had a dream. He saw a stairway erected on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens. The angels of God were going up and coming down it

Then Jacob woke up and thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place, but I did not realize it!"

Early in the morning Jacob took the stone he had placed near his head and set it up as a sacred stone. Then he poured oil on top of it.

Then this stone that I have set up as a sacred stone will be the house of God, and I will surely give you back a tenth of everything you give me."

Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep loudly.

Finally Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife, for my time of service is up. I want to have marital relations with her."

Then he set up the peeled branches in all the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink. He set up the branches in front of the flocks when they were in heat and came to drink.

When the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would set up the branches in the troughs in front of the flock, so they would mate near the branches.

But if the animals were weaker, he did not set the branches there. So the weaker animals ended up belonging to Laban and the stronger animals to Jacob.

So he took his relatives with him and pursued Jacob for seven days. He caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead.

Laban overtook Jacob, and when Jacob pitched his tent in the hill country of Gilead, Laban and his relatives set up camp there too.

Rachel said to her father, "Don't be angry, my lord. I cannot stand up in your presence because I am having my period." So he searched thoroughly, but did not find the idols.

So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a memorial pillar.

"Here is this pile of stones and this pillar I have set up between me and you," Laban said to Jacob.

Jacob looked up and saw that Esau was coming along with four hundred men. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two female servants.

When Esau looked up and saw the women and the children, he asked, "Who are these people with you?" Jacob replied, "The children whom God has graciously given your servant."

There he set up an altar and called it "The God of Israel is God."

Then God said to Jacob, "Go up at once to Bethel and live there. Make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau."

Let us go up at once to Bethel. Then I will make an altar there to God, who responded to me in my time of distress and has been with me wherever I went."

Then God went up from the place where he spoke with him.

So Jacob set up a sacred stone pillar in the place where God spoke with him. He poured out a drink offering on it, and then he poured oil on it.

Jacob set up a marker over her grave; it is the Marker of Rachel's Grave to this day.

There we were, binding sheaves of grain in the middle of the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose up and stood upright and your sheaves surrounded my sheaf and bowed down to it!"

When they sat down to eat their food, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were carrying spices, balm, and myrrh down to Egypt.

Then Judah said to his brothers, "What profit is there if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?

Then Judah said to Onan, "Have sexual relations with your brother's wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her so that you may raise up a descendant for your brother."

Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Live as a widow in your father's house until Shelah my son grows up." For he thought, "I don't want him to die like his brothers." So Tamar went and lived in her father's house.

Tamar was told, "Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep."

So she removed her widow's clothes and covered herself with a veil. She wrapped herself and sat at the entrance to Enaim which is on the way to Timnah. (She did this because she saw that she had not been given to Shelah as a wife, even though he had now grown up.)

On the third day it was Pharaoh's birthday, so he gave a feast for all his servants. He "lifted up" the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker in the midst of his servants.

seven fine-looking, fat cows were coming up out of the Nile, and they grazed in the reeds.

Then seven bad-looking, thin cows were coming up after them from the Nile, and they stood beside the other cows at the edge of the river.

The bad-looking, thin cows ate the seven fine-looking, fat cows. Then Pharaoh woke up.

Then seven heads of grain, thin and burned by the east wind, were sprouting up after them.

The thin heads swallowed up the seven healthy and full heads. Then Pharaoh woke up and realized it was a dream.

Then seven fat and fine-looking cows were coming up out of the Nile, and they grazed in the reeds.

Then seven other cows came up after them; they were scrawny, very bad-looking, and lean. I had never seen such bad-looking cows as these in all the land of Egypt!

The lean, bad-looking cows ate up the seven fat cows.

When they had eaten them, no one would have known that they had done so, for they were just as bad-looking as before. Then I woke up.

Then seven heads of grain, withered and thin and burned with the east wind, were sprouting up after them.

The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven good heads of grain. So I told all this to the diviner-priests, but no one could tell me its meaning."

The seven lean, bad-looking cows that came up after them represent seven years, as do the seven empty heads of grain burned with the east wind. They represent seven years of famine.

They should gather all the excess food during these good years that are coming. By Pharaoh's authority they should store up grain so the cities will have food, and they should preserve it.

Joseph stored up a vast amount of grain, like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring it because it was impossible to measure.

He turned away from them and wept. When he turned around and spoke to them again, he had Simeon taken from them and tied up before their eyes.

When Joseph looked up and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, he said, "Is this your youngest brother, whom you told me about?" Then he said, "May God be gracious to you, my son."

"So now, when I return to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us -- his very life is bound up in his son's life.

Now go up to my father quickly and tell him, 'This is what your son Joseph says: "God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not delay!

So they went up from Egypt and came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan.

Joseph harnessed his chariot and went up to meet his father Israel in Goshen. When he met him, he hugged his neck and wept on his neck for quite some time.

Then Joseph said to his brothers and his father's household, "I will go up and tell Pharaoh, 'My brothers and my father's household who were in the land of Canaan have come to me.

When the money from the lands of Egypt and Canaan was used up, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, "Give us food! Why should we die before your very eyes because our money has run out?"

When that year was over, they came to him the next year and said to him, "We cannot hide from our lord that the money is used up and the livestock and the animals belong to our lord. Nothing remains before our lord except our bodies and our land.

When Jacob was told, "Your son Joseph has just come to you," Israel regained strength and sat up on his bed.

You are a lion's cub, Judah, from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches and lies down like a lion; like a lioness -- who will rouse him?

The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; the nations will obey him.

When Jacob finished giving these instructions to his sons, he pulled his feet up onto the bed, breathed his last breath, and went to his people.

So Joseph went up to bury his father; all Pharaoh's officials went with him -- the senior courtiers of his household, all the senior officials of the land of Egypt,