God called the light “day,” and He called the darkness “night.” Evening came and then morning: the first day.

God called the expanse “sky.” Evening came and then morning: the second day.

Then God said, “Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” And it was so.

The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Evening came and then morning: the third day.

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.

They will be lights in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth.” And it was so.

God made the two great lights—the greater light to have dominion over the day and the lesser light to have dominion over the night—as well as the stars.

God placed them in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth,

to dominate the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.

Evening came and then morning: the fourth day.

So God created the large sea-creatures and every living creature that moves and swarms in the water, according to their kinds. He also created every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Evening came and then morning: the fifth day.

Then God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that crawl, and the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.

So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.

By the seventh day God completed His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.

God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it He rested from His work of creation.

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 caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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 third river is the Tigris, which runs east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it.

And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden,

but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper as his complement.”

So the Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found as his complement.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place.

Then the Lord God made the rib He had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man.

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden.

But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’”

“No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman.

Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

Then He asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

Then the man replied, “The woman You gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”

Then the Lord God said to the serpent:

Because you have done this,
you are cursed more than any livestock
and more than any wild animal.
You will move on your belly
and eat dust all the days of your life.

He said to the woman:

I will intensify your labor pains;
you will bear children in anguish.
Your desire will be for your husband,
yet he will rule over you.

And He said to Adam, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’:

The ground is cursed because of you.
You will eat from it by means of painful labor
all the days of your life.

You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow
until you return to the ground,
since you were taken from it.
For you are dust,
and you will return to dust.”

So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

He drove man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.

Adam was intimate with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. She said, “I have had a male child with the Lord’s help.”

Then she also gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel became a shepherd of flocks, but Cain worked the ground.

In the course of time Cain presented some of the land’s produce as an offering to the Lord.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent?

If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s guardian?”

Then He said, “What have you done? Your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground!

So now you are cursed, alienated, from the ground that opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood you have shed.

But Cain answered the Lord, “My punishment is too great to bear!

Then the Lord replied to him, “In that case, whoever kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” And He placed a mark on Cain so that whoever found him would not kill him.

Cain was intimate with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. Then Cain became the builder of a city, and he named the city Enoch after his son.

Irad was born to Enoch, Irad fathered Mehujael, Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech.

Lamech took two wives for himself, one named Adah and the other named Zillah.

Lamech said to his wives:

Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
wives of Lamech, pay attention to my words.
For I killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for striking me.

If Cain is to be avenged seven times over,
then for Lamech it will be seventy-seven times!

Adam was intimate with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, for she said, “God has given me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.”

A son was born to Seth also, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to call on the name of Yahweh.

These are the family records of the descendants of Adam. On the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God;

Adam was 130 years old when he fathered a son in his likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.

When mankind began to multiply on the earth and daughters were born to them,

The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men.

Then God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to every creature, for the earth is filled with wickedness because of them; therefore I am going to destroy them along with the earth.

This is how you are to make it: The ark will be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.

You are to make a roof, finishing the sides of the ark to within 18 inches of the roof. You are to put a door in the side of the ark. Make it with lower, middle, and upper decks.

“Understand that I am bringing a flood—floodwaters on the earth to destroy every creature under heaven with the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will die.

You are also to bring into the ark two of all the living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.

Two of everything—from the birds according to their kinds, from the livestock according to their kinds, and from the animals that crawl on the ground according to their kinds—will come to you so that you can keep them alive.

Then the Lord said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before Me in this generation.

You are to take with you seven pairs, a male and its female, of all the clean animals, and two of the animals that are not clean, a male and its female,

and seven pairs, male and female, of the birds of the sky—in order to keep offspring alive on the face of the whole earth.

two of each, male and female, entered the ark with Noah, just as God had commanded him.

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the sources of the watery depths burst open, the floodgates of the sky were opened,

On that same day Noah along with his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Noah’s wife, and his three sons’ wives entered the ark with him.

They entered it with all the wildlife according to their kinds, all livestock according to their kinds, the creatures that crawl on the earth according to their kinds, all birds, every fowl, and everything with wings according to their kinds.

Two of all flesh that has the breath of life in it entered the ark with Noah.

He wiped out every living thing that was on the surface of the ground, from mankind to livestock, to creatures that crawl, to the birds of the sky, and they were wiped off the earth. Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark.

God remembered Noah, as well as all the wildlife and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water began to subside.

The ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.

The waters continued to recede until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.

Then he sent out a dove to see whether the water on the earth’s surface had gone down,

but the dove found no resting place for her foot. She returned to him in the ark because water covered the surface of the whole earth. He reached out and brought her into the ark to himself.

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.

After he had waited another seven days, he sent out the dove, but she did not return to him again.

In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the water that had covered the earth was dried up. Then Noah removed the ark’s cover and saw that the surface of the ground was drying.

By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was dry.

Then God spoke to Noah,

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, He said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, even though man’s inclination is evil from his youth. And I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done.

As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, and day and night
will not cease.”

God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Then God said to Noah and his sons with him,

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.”

I will remember My covenant between Me and you and all the living creatures: water will never again become a flood to destroy every creature.