God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.

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

So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above the expanse. And it was so.

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.

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

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.

Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

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

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

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

And the man said:

This one, at last, is bone of my bone
and flesh of my flesh;
this one will be called “woman,”
for she was taken from 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.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

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.”

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.”

The Lord God said, “Since man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.”

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

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.

Since You are banishing me today from the soil, and I must hide myself from Your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, whoever finds me will kill me.”

Then Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

And he named him Noah, saying, “This one will bring us relief from the agonizing labor of our hands, caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.”

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.

Seven days from now I will make it rain on the earth 40 days and 40 nights, and I will wipe off from the face of the earth every living thing I have made.”

From the clean animals, unclean animals, birds, and every creature that crawls on the ground,

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.

The sources of the watery depths and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky stopped.

The water steadily receded from the earth, and by the end of 150 days the waters had decreased significantly.

and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth until the waters had dried up from the earth.

So Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove from the ark again.

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.

These three were Noah’s sons, and from them the whole earth was populated.

When Noah awoke from his drinking and learned what his youngest son had done to him,

From that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-ir, Calah,

Pathrusim, Casluhim (the Philistines came from them), and Caphtorim.

The Canaanite border went from Sidon going toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and going toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim as far as Lasha.

Their settlements extended from Mesha to Sephar, the eastern hill country.

These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their family records, in their nations. The nations on earth spread out from these after the flood.

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

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.

The Lord said to Abram:

Go out from your land,
your relatives,
and your father’s house
to the land that I will show you.

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.

Then Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev—he, his wife, and all he had, and Lot with him.

He went by stages from the Negev to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had formerly been,

Isn’t the whole land before you? Separate from me: if you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left.”

So Lot chose the entire Jordan Valley for himself. Then Lot journeyed eastward, and they separated from each other.

After Lot had separated from him, the Lord said to Abram, “Look from the place where you are. Look north and south, east and west,

Get up and walk around the land, through its length and width, for I will give it to you.”

After Abram returned from defeating Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).

Now the word of the Lord came to him: “This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.”

He also said to him, “I am Yahweh who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I give this land to your offspring, from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River:

Sarai said to Abram, “Since the Lord has prevented me from bearing children, go to my slave; perhaps through her I can build a family.” And Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

Abram replied to Sarai, “Here, your slave is in your hands; do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai mistreated her so much that she ran away from her.

He said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?”

She replied, “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai.”

I will make you extremely fruitful and will make nations and kings come from you.

Throughout your generations, every male among you at eight days old is to be circumcised. This includes a slave born in your house and one purchased with money from any foreigner. The one who is not your offspring,

If any male is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that man will be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

I will bless her; indeed, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she will produce nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”

When He finished talking with him, God withdrew from Abraham.

And all the men of his household—both slaves born in his house and those purchased with money from a foreigner—were circumcised with him.

He looked up, and he saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them and bowed to the ground.

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

Then the Lord said, “Should I hide what I am about to do from Abraham?

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

Then out of the sky the Lord rained burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord.

He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the plain, and he saw that smoke was going up from the land like the smoke of a furnace.

Lot departed from Zoar and lived in the mountains along with his two daughters, because he was afraid to live in Zoar. Instead, he and his two daughters lived in a cave.

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

Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience. I have also kept you from sinning against Me. Therefore I have not let you touch her.

So when God had me wander from my father’s house, I said to her: Show your loyalty to me wherever we go and say about me: ‘He’s my brother.’”

God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What’s wrong, Hagar? Don’t be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy from the place where he is.

He settled in the Wilderness of Paran, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Abraham separated seven ewe lambs from the flock.

He replied, “You are to accept the seven ewe lambs from my hand so that this act will serve as my witness that I dug this well.”

But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!”

He replied, “Here I am.”

Then He said, “Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from Me.”

Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven

Then Abraham got up from beside his dead wife and spoke to the Hittites:

“Listen to us, lord. You are God’s chosen one among us. Bury your dead in our finest burial place. None of us will withhold from you his burial place for burying your dead.”

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.”

The field with its cave passed from the Hittites to Abraham as a burial place.

and I will have you swear by the Lord, God of heaven and God of earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I live,

The servant said to him, “Suppose the woman is unwilling to follow me to this land? Should I have your son go back to the land you came from?”

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.”

Then the servant ran to meet her and said, “Please let me have a little water from your jug.”

and said, “Praise the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not withheld His kindness and faithfulness from my master. As for me, the Lord has led me on the journey to the house of my master’s relatives.”

My master put me under this oath: ‘You will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites in whose land I live

He said to me, ‘The Lord before whom I have walked will send His angel with you and make your journey a success, and you will take a wife for my son from my family and from my father’s household.

Then you will be free from my oath if you go to my family and they do not give her to you—you will be free from my oath.’

I am standing here at a spring. Let the virgin who comes out to draw water, and I say to her: Please let me drink a little water from your jug,