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

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

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

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,

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

Springs would well up from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.

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

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.)

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

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."

Then the Lord God made a woman from the part he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

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'?"

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit from the trees 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.'"

for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil."

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard.

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.

The Lord God made garments from skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

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."

So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.

But the Lord said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground!

So now, you are banished from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

Look! You are driving me off the land today, and I must hide from your presence. I will be a homeless wanderer on the earth; whoever finds me will kill me."

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

He named him Noah, saying, "This one will bring us comfort from our labor and from the painful toil of our hands because of the ground that the Lord has cursed."

the sons of God saw that the daughters of humankind were beautiful. Thus they took wives for themselves from any they chose.

So the Lord said, "I will wipe humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth -- everything from humankind to animals, including creatures that move on the ground and birds of the air, for I regret that I have made them."

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.

I am about to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy from under the sky all the living creatures that have the breath of life in them. Everything that is on the earth will die,

You must bring into the ark two of every kind of living creature from all flesh, male and female, to keep them alive with you.

For in seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the ground every living thing that I have made."

The fountains of the deep and the floodgates of heaven were closed, and the rain stopped falling from the sky.

The waters kept receding steadily from the earth, so that they had gone down by the end of the 150 days.

Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground.

He waited seven more days and then sent out the dove again from the ark.

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.

In Noah's six hundred and first year, in the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth, and Noah removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.

And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma and said to himself, "I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, even though the inclination of their minds is evil from childhood on. I will never again destroy everything that lives, as I have just done.

For your lifeblood I will surely exact punishment, from every living creature I will exact punishment. From each person I will exact punishment for the life of the individual since the man was his relative.

These were the sons of Noah, and from them the whole earth was populated.

When Noah awoke from his drunken stupor he learned what his youngest son had done to him.

From these the coastlands of the nations were separated into their lands, every one according to its language, according to their families, by their nations.

From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah,

Pathrusites, Casluhites (from whom the Philistines came), and Caphtorites.

and the borders of Canaan extended from Sidon all the way to Gerar as far as Gaza, and all the way to Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.

Their dwelling place was from Mesha all the way to Sephar in the eastern hills.

These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations, and from these the nations spread over the earth after the flood.

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.

Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father's household to the land that I will show you.

So Abram left, just as the Lord had told him to do, and Lot went with him. (Now Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.)

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.

So Abram went up from Egypt into the Negev. He took his wife and all his possessions with him, as well as Lot.

And he journeyed from place to place from the Negev as far as Bethel. He returned to the place where he had pitched his tent at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai.

Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself now from me. If you go to the left, then I'll go to the right, but if you go to the right, then I'll go to the left."

Lot chose for himself the whole region of the Jordan and traveled toward the east. So the relatives separated from each other.

After Lot had departed, the Lord said to Abram, "Look from the place where you stand to the north, south, east, and west.

After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet Abram in the Valley of Shaveh (known as the King's Valley).

But look, the word of the Lord came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but instead a son who comes from your own body will be your heir."

The Lord said to him, "I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess."

That day the Lord made a covenant with Abram: "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River --

So Sarai said to Abram, "Since the Lord has prevented me from having children, have sexual relations with my servant. Perhaps I can have a family by her." Abram did what Sarai told him.

Abram said to Sarai, "Since your servant is under your authority, do to her whatever you think best." Then Sarai treated Hagar harshly, so she ran away from Sarai.

He said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?" She replied, "I'm running away from my mistress, Sarai."

He will be a wild donkey of a man. He will be hostile to everyone, and everyone will be hostile to him. He will live away from his brothers."

I will make you extremely fruitful. I will make nations of you, and kings will descend from you.

Throughout your generations every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, whether born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not one of your descendants.

Any uncircumcised male who has not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin will be cut off from his people -- he has failed to carry out my requirement."

I will bless her and will give you a son through her. I will bless her and she will become a mother of nations. Kings of countries will come from her!"

When he finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.

All the men of his household, whether born in his household or bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.

Abraham looked up and saw three men standing across from him. When he saw them he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

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

Far be it from you to do such a thing -- to kill the godly with the wicked, treating the godly and the wicked alike! Far be it from you! Will not the judge of the whole earth do what is right?"

Before they could lie down to sleep, all the men -- both young and old, from every part of the city of Sodom -- surrounded the house.

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.

Then the Lord rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. It was sent down from the sky by the Lord.

So he overthrew those cities and all that region, including all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation that grew from the ground.

He looked out toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of that region. As he did so, he saw the smoke rising up from the land like smoke from a furnace.

So when God destroyed the cities of the region, God honored Abraham's request. He removed Lot from the midst of the destruction when he destroyed the cities Lot had lived in.

Lot went up from Zoar with his two daughters and settled in the mountains because he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters.

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

Then in the dream God replied to him, "Yes, I know that you have done this with a clear conscience. That is why I have kept you from sinning against me and why I did not allow you to touch her.

When God made me wander from my father's house, I told her, 'This is what you can do to show your loyalty to me: Every place we go, say about me, "He is my brother."'"

Then she went and sat down by herself across from him at quite a distance, about a bowshot away; for she thought, "I refuse to watch the child die." So she sat across from him and wept uncontrollably.

But God heard the boy's voice. The angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and asked her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Don't be afraid, for God has heard the boy's voice right where he is crying.

He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother found a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Then Abraham set seven ewe lambs apart from the flock by themselves.

He replied, "You must take these seven ewe lambs from my hand as legal proof that I dug this well."

But the Lord's angel called to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am!" he answered.

"Do not harm the boy!" the angel said. "Do not do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God because you did not withhold your son, your only son, from me."

The Lord's angel called to Abraham a second time from heaven

Then Abraham got up from mourning his dead wife and said to the sons of Heth,

"Listen, sir, you are a mighty prince among us! You may bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will refuse you his tomb to prevent you from burying your dead."

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."

So Abraham secured the field and the cave that was in it as a burial site from the sons of Heth.