Then God said, "I now give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at and good for food. (Now the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the orchard.)

Then the Lord God commanded the man, "You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard,

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."

Now the serpent was more shrewd than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Is it really true that God said, 'You must not eat from any tree of the orchard'?"

but concerning the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the orchard God said, 'You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, or else you will die.'"

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.

And the Lord God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"

The man said, "The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it."

But to Adam he said, "Because you obeyed your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat from it,' cursed is the ground thanks to you; in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

And the Lord God said, "Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."

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.

Is it not true that if you do what is right, you will be fine? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. It desires to dominate you, but you must subdue it."

Make a roof for the ark and finish it, leaving 18 inches from the top. Put a door in the side of the ark, and make lower, middle, and upper decks.

Then they said to one another, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." (They had brick instead of stone and tar instead of mortar.)

Then they said, "Come, let's build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise we will be scattered across the face of the entire earth."

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people had started building.

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

And after he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

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

This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.

Haran died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans, while his father Terah was still alive.

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 lifetime of Terah was 205 years, and he died in Haran.

Abram traveled through the land as far as the oak tree of Moreh at Shechem. (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.)

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.

Let a little water be brought so that you may all wash your feet and rest under the tree.

Abraham then took some curds and milk, along with the calf that had been prepared, and placed the food before them. They ate while he was standing near them under a tree.

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

"Out of our way!" they cried, and "This man came to live here as a foreigner, and now he dares to judge us! We'll do more harm to you than to them!" They kept pressing in on Lot until they were close enough to break down the door.

So the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house as they shut the door.

Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, from the youngest to the oldest, with blindness. The men outside wore themselves out trying to find the door.

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

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.

Here I am, standing by the spring, and the daughters of the people who live in the town are coming 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."

She quickly emptied her jug into the watering trough and ran back to the well to draw more water until she had drawn enough for all his camels.

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."

Then she will reply to me, "Drink, and I'll draw water for your camels too." May that woman be the one whom the Lord has chosen for my master's son.'

"Before I finished praying in my heart, along came Rebekah with her water jug on her shoulder! She went down to the spring and drew water. So I said to her, 'Please give me a drink.'

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."

Later Reuben returned to the cistern to find that Joseph was not in it! He tore his clothes,

Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for his son many days.

But then he drew back his hand, and his brother came out before him. She said, "How you have broken out of the womb!" So he was named Perez.

They all tore their clothes! Then each man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city.

When the child grew older she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, "Because I drew him from the water."

Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and began to draw water and fill the troughs in order to water their father's flock.

They said, "An Egyptian man rescued us from the shepherds, and he actually drew water for us and watered the flock!"

They will cover the surface of the earth, so that you will be unable to see the ground. They will eat the remainder of what escaped -- what is left over for you -- from the hail, and they will eat every tree that grows for you from the field.

If any household is too small for a lamb, the man and his next-door neighbor are to take a lamb according to the number of people -- you will make your count for the lamb according to how much each one can eat.

Take a branch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and apply to the top of the doorframe and the two side posts some of the blood that is in the basin. Not one of you is to go out the door of his house until morning.

For the Lord will pass through to strike Egypt, and when he sees the blood on the top of the doorframe and the two side posts, then the Lord will pass over the door, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.

The enemy said, 'I will chase, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my desire will be satisfied on them. I will draw my sword, my hand will destroy them.'

He cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When Moses threw it into the water, the water became safe to drink. There the Lord made for them a binding ordinance, and there he tested them.

The people kept their distance, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.

then his master must bring him to the judges, and he will bring him to the door or the doorposts, and his master will pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.

and the altar of incense with its poles, the anointing oil, and the fragrant incense; the hanging for the door at the entrance of the tabernacle;

With it he made the bases for the door of the tent of meeting, the bronze altar, the bronze grating for it, and all the utensils of the altar,

and tear it open by its wings without dividing it into two parts. Finally, the priest must offer it up in smoke on the altar on the wood which is in the fire -- it is a burnt offering, a gift of a soothing aroma to the Lord.

Then Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar his other two sons, "Do not dishevel the hair of your heads and do not tear your garments, so that you do not die and so that wrath does not come on the whole congregation. Your brothers, all the house of Israel, are to mourn the burning which the Lord has caused,

But if the priest has examined it and the infection has faded after it has been washed, he is to tear it out of the garment or the leather or the warp or the woof.

then the priest is to go out of the house to the doorway of the house and quarantine the house for seven days.

He must tear down the house, its stones, its wood, and all the plaster of the house, and bring all of it outside the city to an unclean place.

"'When you enter the land and plant any fruit tree, you must consider its fruit to be forbidden. Three years it will be forbidden to you; it must not be eaten.

"'The high priest -- who is greater than his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured, who has been ordained to wear the priestly garments -- must neither dishevel the hair of his head nor tear his garments.

Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, everyone at the door of his tent; and when the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly, Moses was also displeased.

And the Lord said to Moses, "Is the Lord's hand shortened? Now you will see whether my word to you will come true or not!"

And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, two of those who had investigated the land, tore their garments.

They traveled from Tahath and camped at Terah.

They traveled from Terah and camped in Mithcah.

"'And this will be your northern border: From the Great Sea you will draw a line to Mount Hor;

from Mount Hor you will draw a line to Lebo Hamath, and the direction of the border will be to Zedad.

"'For your eastern border you will draw a line from Hazar Enan to Shepham.

Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, cut down their sacred Asherah poles, and burn up their idols.

So realize that the Lord your God is the true God, the faithful God who keeps covenant faithfully with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

You must by all means destroy all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods -- on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree.

You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, burn up their sacred Asherah poles, and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place.

You must investigate thoroughly and inquire carefully. If it is indeed true that such a disgraceful thing is being done among you,

the ibex, the gazelle, the deer, the wild goat, the antelope, the wild oryx, and the mountain sheep.

you shall take an awl and pierce a hole through his ear to the door. Then he will become your servant permanently (this applies to your female servant as well).

You must not plant any kind of tree as a sacred Asherah pole near the altar of the Lord your God which you build for yourself.

When it is reported to you and you hear about it, you must investigate carefully. If it is indeed true that such a disgraceful thing is being done in Israel,

Suppose he goes with someone else to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose from the handle and strikes his fellow worker so hard that he dies. The person responsible may then flee to one of these cities to save himself.

If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, you must not chop down its trees, for you may eat fruit from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it!

However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food, and you may use it to build siege works against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.

If a person commits a sin punishable by death and is executed, and you hang the corpse on a tree,

his body must not remain all night on the tree; instead you must make certain you bury him that same day, for the one who is left exposed on a tree is cursed by God. You must not defile your land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

If you happen to notice a bird's nest along the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, and there are chicks or eggs with the mother bird sitting on them, you must not take the mother from the young.

But if the accusation is true and the young woman was not a virgin,

the men of her city must bring the young woman to the door of her father's house and stone her to death, for she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by behaving like a prostitute while living in her father's house. In this way you will purge evil from among you.

If a man marries a woman and she does not please him because he has found something offensive in her, then he may draw up a divorce document, give it to her, and evict her from his house.

When you beat your olive tree you must not repeat the procedure; the remaining olives belong to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow.

Whirring locusts will take over every tree and all the produce of your soil.

The Lord appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud that stood above the door of the tent.

Of Gad he said: Blessed be the one who enlarges Gad. Like a lioness he will dwell; he will tear at an arm -- indeed, a scalp.

They returned and reported to Joshua, "Don't send the whole army. About two or three thousand men are adequate to defeat Ai. Don't tire out the whole army, for Ai is small."

Joshua tore his clothes; he and the leaders of Israel lay face down on the ground before the ark of the Lord until evening and threw dirt on their heads.

Achan told Joshua, "It is true. I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel in this way:

All the troops that were with him marched up and drew near the city. They camped north of Ai on the other side of the valley.

He hung the king of Ai on a tree, leaving him exposed until evening. At sunset Joshua ordered that his corpse be taken down from the tree. They threw it down at the entrance of the city gate and erected over it a large pile of stones (it remains to this very day).