Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Then God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, separating water from water.”

Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will serve as signs for festivals and for days and years.

No shrub of the field had yet grown on the land, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not made it rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground.

The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He placed the man He had formed.

A river went out from Eden to water the garden. From there it divided and became the source of four rivers.

The name of the first is Pishon, which flows through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.

Gold from that land is pure; bdellium and onyx are also there.

Enoch walked with God; then he was not there because God took him.

When the dove came to him at evening, there was a plucked olive leaf in her beak. So Noah knew that the water on the earth’s surface had gone down.

I confirm My covenant with you that never again will every creature be wiped out by the waters of a flood; there will never again be a flood to destroy the earth.”

As people migrated from the east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.

Come, let Us go down there and confuse their language so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

So from there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city.

Therefore its name is called Babylon, for there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (Haran’s son), and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.

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

From there he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. He built an altar to Yahweh there, and he called on the name of Yahweh.

There was a famine in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine in the land was severe.

to the site where he had built the altar. And Abram called on the name of Yahweh there.

and there was quarreling between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land.

“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.

“There, in the tent,” he answered.

The men got up from there and looked out over Sodom, and Abraham was walking with them to see them off.

The men turned from there and went toward Sodom while Abraham remained standing before the Lord.

What if there are 50 righteous people in the city? Will You really sweep it away instead of sparing the place for the sake of the 50 righteous people who are in it?

suppose the 50 righteous lack five. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?”

He replied, “I will not destroy it if I find 45 there.”

Then he spoke to Him again, “Suppose 40 are found there?”

He answered, “I will not do it on account of 40.”

Then he said, “Let the Lord not be angry, and I will speak further. Suppose 30 are found there?”

He answered, “I will not do it if I find 30 there.”

Then he said, “Since I have ventured to speak to the Lord, suppose 20 are found there?”

He replied, “I will not destroy it on account of 20.”

Then he said, “Let the Lord not be angry, and I will speak one more time. Suppose 10 are found there?”

He answered, “I will not destroy it on account of 10.”

Look, this town is close enough for me to run to. It is a small place. Please let me go there—it’s only a small place, isn’t it?—so that I can survive.”

Hurry up! Run there, for I cannot do anything until you get there.” Therefore the name of the city is Zoar.

Then the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to sleep with us as is the custom of all the land.

From there Abraham traveled to the region of the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he lived in Gerar,

Abraham replied, “I thought, ‘There is absolutely no fear of God in this place. They will kill me because of my wife.’

Therefore that place was called Beer-sheba because it was there that the two of them swore an oath.

Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and there he called on the name of Yahweh, the Everlasting God.

“Take your son,” He said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there to worship; then we’ll come back to you.”

When they arrived at the place that God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood.

and said to Ephron in the presence of the people of the land, “Please listen to me. Let me pay the price of the field. Accept it from me, and let me bury my dead there.”

Abraham answered him, “Make sure that you don’t take my son back there.

The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from my native land, who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘I will give this land to your offspring’—He will send His angel before you, and you can take a wife for my son from there.

If the woman is unwilling to follow you, then you are free from this oath to me, but don’t let my son go back there.”

Before he had finished speaking, there was Rebekah—daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor—coming with a jug on her shoulder.

“Whose daughter are you?” he asked. “Please tell me, is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?”

As soon as he had seen the ring and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and when he had heard his sister Rebekah’s words—“The man said this to me!”—he went to the man. He was standing there by the camels at the spring.

“Before I had finished praying silently, there was Rebekah coming with her jug on her shoulder, and she went down to the spring and drew water. So I said to her: Please let me have a drink.

This was the field that Abraham bought from the Hittites. Abraham was buried there with his wife Sarah.

When her time came to give birth, there were indeed twins in her womb.

There was another famine in the land in addition to the one that had occurred in Abraham’s time. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar.

When Isaac had been there for some time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from the window and was surprised to see Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

So Isaac left there, camped in the Valley of Gerar, and lived there.

Then Isaac’s slaves dug in the valley and found a well of spring water there.

He moved from there and dug another, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Open Spaces and said, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

From there he went up to Beer-sheba,

So he built an altar there, called on the name of Yahweh, and pitched his tent there. Isaac’s slaves also dug a well there.

They replied, “We have clearly seen how the Lord has been with you. We think there should be an oath between two parties—between us and you. Let us make a covenant with you:

Then Rebekah took the best clothes of her older son Esau, which were in the house, and had her younger son Jacob wear them.

until your brother’s rage turns away from you and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back from there. Why should I lose you both in one day?”

Esau noticed that Isaac blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-aram to get a wife there. When he blessed him, Isaac commanded Jacob, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman.”

He reached a certain place and spent the night there because the sun had set. He took one of the stones from the place, put it there at his head, and lay down in that place.

Yahweh was standing there beside him, saying, “I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your offspring the land that you are now sleeping on.

He looked and saw a well in a field. Three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it because the sheep were watered from this well. A large stone covered the opening of the well.

When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the opening of the well and water the sheep. The stone was then placed back on the well’s opening.

When morning came, there was Leah! So he said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Wasn’t it for Rachel that I worked for you? Why have you deceived me?”

There I was—the heat consumed me by day and the frost by night, and sleep fled from my eyes.

Then Jacob said to his relatives, “Gather stones.” And they took stones and made a mound, then ate there by the mound.

He spent the night there and took part of what he had brought with him as a gift for his brother Esau:

Then Jacob asked Him, “Please tell me Your name.”

But He answered, “Why do you ask My name?” And He blessed him there.

And he set up an altar there and called it “God, the God of Israel.”

So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city and spoke to the men there.

God said to Jacob, “Get up! Go to Bethel and settle there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”

We must get up and go to Bethel. I will build an altar there to the God who answered me in my day of distress. He has been with me everywhere I have gone.”

Jacob built an altar there and called the place God of Bethel because it was there that God had revealed Himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

There we were, binding sheaves of grain in the field. Suddenly my sheaf stood up, and your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.”

A man found him there, wandering in the field, and asked him, “What are you looking for?”

Then they took him and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

Then they sat down to eat a meal. They looked up, and there was a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were carrying aromatic gum, balsam, and resin, going down to Egypt.

When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes.

There Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite named Shua; he took her as a wife and slept with her.

He asked the men of the place, “Where is the cult prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?”

“There has been no cult prostitute here,” they answered.

So the Adullamite returned to Judah, saying, “I couldn’t find her, and furthermore, the men of the place said, ‘There has been no cult prostitute here.’”

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

Now Joseph had been taken to Egypt. An Egyptian named Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there.

Now one day he went into the house to do his work, and none of the household servants were there.

and had him thrown into prison, where the king’s prisoners were confined. So Joseph was there in prison.

The warden put all the prisoners who were in the prison under Joseph’s authority, and he was responsible for everything that was done there.

“We had dreams,” they said to him, “but there is no one to interpret them.”

Then Joseph said to them, “Don’t interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”

So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph: “In my dream there was a vine in front of me.

Now a young Hebrew, a slave of the captain of the guards, was with us there. We told him our dreams, he interpreted our dreams for us, and each had its own interpretation.

So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has made all this known to you, there is no one as intelligent and wise as you are.

and the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in every country, but throughout the land of Egypt there was food.

When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you keep looking at each other?

Listen,” he went on, “I have heard there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us so that we will live and not die.”

They did not realize that Joseph understood them, since there was an interpreter between them.

They loaded the grain on their donkeys and left there.

At the place where they lodged for the night, one of them opened his sack to get feed for his donkey, and he saw his money there at the top of the bag.

As they began emptying their sacks, there in each man’s sack was his bag of money! When they and their father saw their bags of money, they were afraid.

Since the men had heard that they were going to eat a meal there, they prepared their gift for Joseph’s arrival at noon.