Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

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

Then God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so.

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.

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.

Then God said, “Let the water swarm with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.”

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.

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 also said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This food will be for you,

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

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.

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.

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

And he said, “I heard You in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

So the Lord God asked the woman, “What is this you have done?”

And the woman said, “It was the serpent. He deceived me, 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.

I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.

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.”

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.”

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

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!

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.

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.”

And the Lord said, “My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years.”

Then the Lord said, “I will wipe off from the face of the earth mankind, whom I created, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.”

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with wickedness.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between Me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all future generations:

God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have confirmed between Me and every creature on earth.”

he said:

Canaan will be cursed.
He will be the lowest of slaves to his brothers.

He also said:

Praise the Lord, the God of Shem;
Canaan will be his slave.

He was a powerful hunter in the sight of the Lord. That is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a powerful hunter in the sight of the Lord.”

They said to each other, “Come, let us make oven-fired bricks.” They used brick for stone and asphalt for mortar.

And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

The Lord said, “If they have begun to do this as one people all having the same language, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

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.

He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people he had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,

Abram passed through the land to the site of Shechem, at the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.

When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “Look, I know what a beautiful woman you are.

So Pharaoh sent for Abram and said, “What have you done to me? Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?

to the site where he had built the altar. And Abram called on the name of Yahweh there.

But the land was unable to support them as long as they stayed together, for they had so many possessions that they could not stay together,

Then Abram said to Lot, “Please, let’s not have quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, since we are relatives.

Abram lived in the land of Canaan, but Lot lived in the cities of the valley and set up his tent near Sodom.

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,

He blessed him and said:

Abram is blessed by God Most High,
Creator of heaven and earth,

Then the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people, but take the possessions for yourself.”

But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have raised my hand in an oath to Yahweh, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth,

But Abram said, “Lord God, what can You give me, since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”

He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then He said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.”

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

But he said, “Lord God, how can I know that I will possess it?”

He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be foreigners in a land that does not belong to them; they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years.

When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals.

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.

Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for my suffering! I put my slave in your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the Lord judge between me and you.”

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.”

Then the Angel of the Lord said to her, “You must go back to your mistress and submit to her mistreatment.”

The Angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will greatly multiply your offspring, and they will be too many to count.”

Then the Angel of the Lord said to her:

You have conceived and will have a son.
You will name him Ishmael,
for the Lord has heard your cry of affliction.

So she called the Lord who spoke to her: The God Who Sees, for she said, “In this place, have I actually seen the One who sees me?”

God also said to Abraham, “As for you, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations are to keep My covenant.

God said to Abraham, “As for your wife Sarai, do not call her Sarai, for Sarah will be her name.

So Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael were acceptable to You!”

But God said, “No. Your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will confirm My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his future offspring.

Then Abraham took his son Ishmael and all the slaves born in his house or purchased with his money—every male among the members of Abraham’s household—and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskin on that very day, just as God had said to him.

Then he said, “My lord, if I have found favor in your sight, please do not go on past your servant.

I will bring a bit of bread so that you may strengthen yourselves. This is why you have passed your servant’s way. Later, you can continue on.”

“Yes,” they replied, “do as you have said.”

So Abraham hurried into the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Knead three measures of fine flour and make bread.”

Then Abraham took curds and milk, and the calf that he had prepared, and set them before the men. He served them as they ate under the tree.

The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him.

Sarah denied it. “I did not laugh,” she said, because she was afraid.

But He replied, “No, you did laugh.”

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

Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is immense, and their sin is extremely serious.

Abraham stepped forward and said, “Will You really sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

The Lord said, “If I find 50 righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Then he said, “Let the Lord not be angry, and I will speak further. Suppose 30 are found there?”

He answered, “I will not do it if I find 30 there.”

Then he said, “Since I have ventured to speak to the Lord, suppose 20 are found there?”

He replied, “I will not destroy it on account of 20.”

Then he said, “Let the Lord not be angry, and I will speak one more time. Suppose 10 are found there?”

He answered, “I will not destroy it on account of 10.”

and said, “My lords, turn aside to your servant’s house, wash your feet, and spend the night. Then you can get up early and go on your way.”

“No,” they said. “We would rather spend the night in the square.”

They called out to Lot and said, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so we can have sex with them!”

He said, “Don’t do this evil, my brothers.