God said, "Let there be light." And there was light!

God called the light "day" and the darkness "night." There was evening, and there was morning, marking the first day.

God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate water from water.

God called the expanse "sky." There was evening, and there was morning, a second day.

There was evening, and there was morning, a third day.

God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs to indicate seasons and days and years,

There was evening, and there was morning, a fourth day.

There was evening, and there was morning, a fifth day.

God saw all that he had made -- and it was very good! There was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.

Now no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.

The Lord God planted an orchard in the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man he had formed.

Now a river flows from Eden to water the orchard, and from there it divides into four headstreams.

The name of the first is Pishon; it runs through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.

(The gold of that land is pure; pearls and lapis lazuli are also there).

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

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

That is why its name was called Babel -- because there the Lord confused the language of the entire world, and from there the Lord scattered them across the face of the entire earth.

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.

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.

Then he moved from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and worshiped the Lord.

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

This was the place where he had first built the altar, and there Abram worshiped the Lord.

So there were quarrels between Abram's herdsmen and Lot's herdsmen. (Now the Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land at that time.)

Abram said to Lot, "Let there be no quarreling between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are close relatives.

So Abram moved his tents and went to live by the oaks of Mamre in Hebron, and he built an altar to the Lord there.

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

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?

what if there are five less than the fifty godly people? Will you destroy the whole city because five are lacking?" He replied, "I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there."

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

Then Abraham said, "May the Lord not be angry so that I may speak! What if thirty are found there?" He replied, "I will not do it if I find thirty there."

Abraham said, "Since I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty are found there?" He replied, "I will not destroy it for the sake of the twenty."

Finally Abraham said, "May the Lord not be angry so that I may speak just once more. What if ten are found there?" He replied, "I will not destroy it for the sake of the ten."

Look, this town over here is close enough to escape to, and it's just a little one. Let me go there. It's just a little place, isn't it? Then I'll survive."

Run there quickly, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there." (This incident explains why the town was called Zoar.)

Later the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man anywhere nearby to have sexual relations with us, according to the way of all the world.

Abraham journeyed from there to the Negev region and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he lived as a temporary resident in Gerar,

That is why he named that place Beer Sheba, because the two of them swore an oath there.

Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer Sheba. There he worshiped the Lord, the eternal God.

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."

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.

and said to Ephron in their hearing, "Hear me, if you will. I pay to you the price of the field. Take it from me so that I may bury my dead there."

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

"The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and the land of my relatives, promised me with a solemn oath, 'To your descendants I will give this land.' He will send his angel before you so that you may find a wife for my son from there.

But if the woman is not willing to come back with you, you will be free from this oath of mine. But you must not take my son back there!"

Before he had finished praying, there came Rebekah with her water jug on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah (Milcah was the wife of Abraham's brother Nahor).

"Whose daughter are you?" he asked. "Tell me, is there room in your father's house for us to spend the night?"

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.

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.

This was the field Abraham had purchased from the sons of Heth. There Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah.

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

There was a famine in the land, subsequent to the earlier famine that occurred in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines at Gerar.

After Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines happened to look out a window and observed Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

So Isaac left there and settled in the Gerar Valley.

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

Then he moved away from there and dug another well. They did not quarrel over it, so Isaac named it Rehoboth, saying, "For now the Lord has made room for us, and we will prosper in the land."

From there Isaac went up to Beer Sheba.

Then Isaac built an altar there and worshiped the Lord. He pitched his tent there, and his servants dug a well.

They replied, "We could plainly see that the Lord is with you. So we decided there should be a pact between us -- between us and you. Allow us to make a treaty with you

Stay there until your brother's anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I'll send someone to bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?"

Leave immediately for Paddan Aram! Go to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and find yourself a wife there, among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.

Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him off to Paddan Aram to find a wife there. As he blessed him, Isaac commanded him, "You must not marry a Canaanite woman."

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.

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.

There he said to them, "I can tell that your father's attitude toward me has changed, but the God of my father has been with me.

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

Then he said to his relatives, "Gather stones." So they brought stones and put them in a pile. They ate there by the pile of stones.

Jacob stayed there that night. Then he sent as a gift to his brother Esau

Then Jacob asked, "Please tell me your name." "Why do you ask my name?" the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.

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."

He built an altar there and named the place El Bethel because there God had revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

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!"

Then they took him and threw him into the cistern. (Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it.)

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

returned to his brothers, and said, "The boy isn't there! And I, where can I go?"

There Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. Judah acquired her as a wife and had marital relations with her.

He asked the men who were there, "Where is the cult prostitute who was at Enaim by the road?" But they replied, "There has been no cult prostitute here."

So he returned to Judah and said, "I couldn't find her. Moreover, the men of the place said, 'There has been no cult prostitute here.'"

When it was time for her to give birth, there were twins in her womb.

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

There is no one greater in this household than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. So how could I do such a great evil and sin against God?"

One day he went into the house to do his work when none of the household servants were there in the house.

Joseph's master took him and threw him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. So he was there in the prison.

They told him, "We both had dreams, but there is no one to interpret them." Joseph responded, "Don't interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me."

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

On the vine there were three branches. As it budded, its blossoms opened and its clusters ripened into grapes.

When the chief baker saw that the interpretation of the first dream was favorable, he said to Joseph, "I also appeared in my dream and there were three baskets of white bread on my head.

In the top basket there were baked goods of every kind for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them from the basket that was on my head."

Then he fell asleep again and had a second dream: There were seven heads of grain growing on one stalk, healthy and good.

Now a young man, a Hebrew, a servant of the captain of the guards, was with us there. We told him our dreams, and he interpreted the meaning of each of our respective dreams for us.

Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. But I have heard about you, that you can interpret dreams."

So Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Because God has enabled you to know all this, there is no one as wise and discerning as you are!

Then the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had predicted. There was famine in all the other lands, but throughout the land of Egypt there was food.

When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, "Why are you looking at each other?"

He then said, "Look, I hear that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy grain for us so that we may live and not die."

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