Now the earth was without shape and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep, but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water.

Then the LORD God shope man, even of the mold of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life. So man was made a living soul.

And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

Abel, also, even, he, brought in of the firstlings of his sheep, and of their fat, and Yahweh approved of Abel and of his present;

Make a ship of gopher wood. You shall make rooms in the ship, and shall seal it inside and outside with pitch.

This is how you shall make it. The length of the ship will be three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.

You shall make a roof in the ship, and you shall finish it to a cubit upward. You shall set the door of the ship in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third levels.

But I will establish my covenant with you. You shall come into the ship, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.

Of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ship, to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female.

Yahweh said to Noah, "Come with all of your household into the ship, for I have seen your righteousness before me in this generation.

Noah went into the ship with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives, because of the waters of the flood.

went by pairs to Noah into the ship, male and female, as God commanded Noah.

In the same day Noah, and Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, entered into the ship;

They went to Noah into the ship, by pairs of all flesh with the breath of life in them.

The flood was forty days on the earth. The waters increased, and lifted up the ship, and it was lifted up above the earth.

The waters prevailed, and increased greatly on the earth; and the ship floated on the surface of the waters.

Every living thing was destroyed that was on the surface of the ground, including man, livestock, creeping things, and birds of the sky. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ship.

God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided.

The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat's mountains.

It happened at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made,

but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned to him into the ship; for the waters were on the surface of the whole earth. He put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ship.

He stayed yet another seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ship.

It happened in the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dried.

"Go out of the ship, you, and your wife, and your sons, and your sons' wives with you.

Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatever moves on the earth, after their families, went out of the ship.

and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the livestock, and every animal of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ship, even every animal of the earth.

The sons of Noah who went forth from the ship were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham is the father of Canaan.

And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.

And Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba,

And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.

And also to Lot, who is going with Abram, there hath been sheep and oxen and tents;

And he said, Take a young cow of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a sheep of three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon.

And Abimelech took sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and womenservants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife.

And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and gave her the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant.

So then Abram set seven young sheep of the flock by them-selves,

And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What, then mean these seven young sheep here, which thou hast set by themselves?

And he said, The seven young sheep, shalt thou take at my hand, - that they may serve as my witness, that I digged this well.

Wherefore he called that place Beer-sheba. Because there they sware both of them.

So they made a covenant at Beer-sheba. And Abimelech rose up, and Phicol the captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.

And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of Jehovah, the Everlasting God.

And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, My father! And he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the sheep for a burnt-offering?

And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself with the sheep for a burnt-offering. And they went both of them together.

And lifting up his eyes, Abraham saw a sheep fixed by its horns in the brushwood: and Abraham took the sheep and made a burned offering of it in place of his son.

So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beer-sheba. And Abraham dwelt at Beer-sheba.

And Jehovah has blessed my master greatly, and he is become great; and he has given him sheep and cattle, and silver and gold, and bondmen and bondwomen, and camels and asses.

And Jokshan begat Sheba, and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.

And he possessed sheep and cattle and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him.

And he went up from thence to Beer-sheba.

And he called it Shebah: therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day.

And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran.

And he looked, and behold a well in the field, and, lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it; for out of that well they watered the flocks: and a great stone was upon the well's mouth.

And thither were all the flocks gathered: and they rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone again upon the well's mouth in his place.

And he said unto them, Is he well? And they said, He is well: and, behold, Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep.

And he said, Lo, it is yet high day, neither is it time that the cattle should be gathered together: water ye the sheep, and go and feed them.

And they said, We cannot, until all the flocks be gathered together, and till they roll the stone from the well's mouth; then we water the sheep.

And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep: for she kept them.

And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother's brother, that Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother's brother.

Jacob answered him, “You know how I have served you and how your possessions, your cattle and sheep and goats, have fared with me.

And he said, "What shall I give thee?" And Jacob answered, "Thou shalt give me nothing at all, if thou wilt do this one thing for me: And then will I turn again and feed thy sheep and keep them.

I will pass through all thy flock to day, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and of such shall be my hire.

So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come, when it shall come for my hire before thy face: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep, that shall be counted stolen with me.

And he removed that day the he goats that were ringstraked and spotted, and all the she goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons.

and set three days' journey betwixt himself and Jacob. And so Jacob kept the rest of Laban's sheep.

He set the peeled branches in the troughs in front of the sheep—in the water channels where the sheep came to drink. And the sheep bred when they came to drink.

When the sheep mated in front of the branches, they gave birth to young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.

Jacob separated the lambs and made the flocks face the streaked and the completely dark sheep in Laban’s flocks. Then he set his own stock apart and didn’t put them with Laban’s sheep.

And always in the first bucking time of the sheep, Jacob put the staves before the sheep in the gutters, that they might conceive before the staves:

but when the sheep were feeble, he put them not in; so the feeble were Laban's, and the strong Jacob's.

So Jacob became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks [of sheep and goats], and female and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

Then Jacob sent and called Rachel and Lea to the field unto his sheep,

If he said, ‘The spotted sheep will be your wages,’ then all the sheep were born spotted. If he said, ‘The streaked sheep will be your wages,’ then all the sheep were born streaked.

For in bucking time, I lifted up mine eyes and saw in a dream: and behold, the rams that bucked the sheep were streaked, spotted and party.

And he said, 'Lift up thine eyes and see how all the rams that leap upon the sheep are streaked, spotted and party: for I have seen all that Laban doth unto thee.

And Laban went to shear his sheep: and Rachel had stolen the images that were her father's.

These twenty years I have been with you; your sheep and your goats have had young without loss, not one of your he-goats have I taken for food.

This, hath been my lot twenty years in thy house, - I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, And six years for thy sheep - And thou didst change my wages ten times: -

Then responded Laban and said unto Jacob - the daughters, are my daughters, And the sons, are my sons, And the sheep are my sheep, And, all that, thou, beholdest, To me doth it belong! But to my daughters, what can I do to these this day, Or to their sons whom they have borne?

and I have oxen, and asses, sheep, and bondmen, and bondwomen; and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favour in thine eyes.

Then Jacob was greatly afraid, and was distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and the sheep and the cattle and the camels, into two troops.

Two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred females and twenty males from the sheep,

And he said to him, My lord knows that the children are tender, and the suckling sheep and kine are with me; and if they should overdrive them only one day, all the flock would die.

They took their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field,

And Esau took his wives and his sons and his daughters, and all the persons of his household, and his sheep and goats, and all his cattle, and all the goods that he had acquired in the land of Canaan, and went to a land away from his brother Jacob.

These are the family records of Jacob.

At 17 years of age, Joseph tended sheep with his brothers. The young man was working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought a bad report about them to their father.

His brethren went to keep their father's sheep in Shechem,

And he said unto him, "Go and see whether it be well with thy brethren and the sheep, and bring me word again." And sent him out of the vale of Hebron, for to go to Shechem.

And he answered, "I seek my brethren, tell me, I pray thee, where they keep sheep."

And in process of time Shua's daughter, the wife of Judah, died; and Judah was comforted, and went up unto his sheep-shearers to Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite.

And it was told Tamar, saying, Behold thy father in law goeth up to Timnath to shear his sheep.

And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near to me, thou, and thy sons, and thy sons' sons, and thy sheep, and thy cattle, and all that thou hast.

And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac.

And Jacob rose up from Beer-sheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him.

and the men are shepherds, for they have been occupied with cattle; and they have brought their sheep, and their cattle, and all that they have.

You are to say, Your servants have been keepers of cattle from our early days up to now, like our fathers; in this way you will be able to have the land of Goshen for yourselves; because keepers of sheep are unclean in the eyes of the Egyptians.

And Joseph came and told Pharaoh and said, My father and my brethren, and their sheep and their cattle, and all that they have, are come out of the land of Canaan; and behold, they are in the land of Goshen.

And Pharaoh said to his brothers, "What [is] your occupation?" And they said to Pharaoh, "Your servants [are] keepers of sheep, both we and also our ancestors."

And they said to Pharaoh, To sojourn in the land are we come; for there is no pasture for the sheep that thy servants have, for the famine is grievous in the land of Canaan; and now, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen.

And they brought their cattle to Joseph; and Joseph gave them bread for horses, and for flocks of sheep, and for herds of cattle, and for asses; and he fed them with bread for all their cattle that year.

nevertheless his bow remained steady and his arms kept in shape by the strength of Jacob's Mighty One, in the name of the Shepherd, Israel's Rock,