Introduction

Genesis

First, God. God is the subject of life. God is foundational for living. If we don’t have a sense of the primacy of God, we will never get it right, get life right, get our lives right. Not God at the margins; not God as an option; not God on the weekends. God at center and circumference; God first and last; God, God, God.

Genesis gets us off on the right foot. Genesis pulls us into a sense of reality that is God-shaped and God-filled. It gives us a vocabulary for speaking accurately and comprehensively about our lives, where we come from and where we are going, what we think and what we do, the people we live with and how to get along with them, the troubles we find ourselves in and the blessings that keep arriving.

Genesis uses words to make a foundation that is solid and true. Everything we think and do and feel is material in a building operation in which we are engaged all our life long. There is immense significance in everything that we do. Our speech and our actions and our prayers are all, every detail of them, involved in this vast building operation comprehensively known as the Kingdom of God. But we don’t build the foundation. The foundation is given. The foundation is firmly in place.

Jesus concluded his most famous teaching by telling us that there are two ways to go about our lives—we can build on sand or we can build on rock. No matter how wonderfully we build, if we build on sand it will all fall to pieces like a house of cards. We build on what is already there, on the rock. Genesis is a verbal witness to that rock: God’s creative acts, God’s intervening and gracious judgments, God’s call to a life of faith, God’s making covenant with us.

But Genesis presents none of this to us as an abstract, bloodless “truth” or “principle.” We are given a succession of stories with named people, people who loved and quarreled, believed and doubted, had children and married, experienced sin and grace. If we pay attention, we find that we ourselves are living variations on these very stories: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and his sons, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Joseph and his brothers. The stories show clearly that we are never outsiders or spectators to anything in “heaven and earth.” God doesn’t work impersonally from space; he works with us where we are, as he finds us. No matter what we do, whether good or bad, we continue to be part of everything that God is doing. Nobody can drop out—there’s no place to drop out to. So we may as well get started and take our place in the story—at the beginning.

Genesis

Heaven and Earth

1–2  1 First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.

3–5  God spoke: “Light!”

And light appeared.

God saw that light was good

and separated light from dark.

God named the light Day,

he named the dark Night.

It was evening, it was morning—

Day One.

6–8  God spoke: “Sky! In the middle of the waters;

separate water from water!”

God made sky.

He separated the water under sky

from the water above sky.

And there it was:

he named sky the Heavens;

It was evening, it was morning—

Day Two.

9–10  God spoke: “Separate!

Water-beneath-Heaven, gather into one place;

Land, appear!”

And there it was.

God named the land Earth.

He named the pooled water Ocean.

God saw that it was good.

11–13  God spoke: “Earth, green up! Grow all varieties

of seed-bearing plants,

Every sort of fruit-bearing tree.”

And there it was.

Earth produced green seed-bearing plants,

all varieties,

And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts.

God saw that it was good.

It was evening, it was morning—

Day Three.

14–15  God spoke: “Lights! Come out!

Shine in Heaven’s sky!

Separate Day from Night.

Mark seasons and days and years,

Lights in Heaven’s sky to give light to Earth.”

And there it was.

16–19  God made two big lights, the larger

to take charge of Day,

The smaller to be in charge of Night;

and he made the stars.

God placed them in the heavenly sky

to light up Earth

And oversee Day and Night,

to separate light and dark.

God saw that it was good.

It was evening, it was morning—

Day Four.

20–23  God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life!

Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”

God created the huge whales,

all the swarm of life in the waters,

And every kind and species of flying birds.

God saw that it was good.

God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean!

Birds, reproduce on Earth!”

It was evening, it was morning—

Day Five.

24–25  God spoke: “Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind:

cattle and reptiles and wild animals—all kinds.”

And there it was:

wild animals of every kind,

Cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug.

God saw that it was good.

26–28  God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them

reflecting our nature

So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,

the birds in the air, the cattle,

And, yes, Earth itself,

and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”

God created human beings;

he created them godlike,

Reflecting God’s nature.

He created them male and female.

God blessed them:

“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!

Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,

for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”

29–30  Then God said, “I’ve given you

every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth

And every kind of fruit-bearing tree,

given them to you for food.

To all animals and all birds,

everything that moves and breathes,

I give whatever grows out of the ground for food.”

And there it was.

31  God looked over everything he had made;

it was so good, so very good!

It was evening, it was morning—

Day Six.

1  2 Heaven and Earth were finished,

down to the last detail.

2–4  By the seventh day

God had finished his work.

On the seventh day

he rested from all his work.

God blessed the seventh day.

He made it a Holy Day

Because on that day he rested from his work,

all the creating God had done.

This is the story of how it all started,

of Heaven and Earth when they were created.

Adam and Eve

5–7  At the time God made Earth and Heaven, before any grasses or shrubs had sprouted from the ground—God hadn’t yet sent rain on Earth, nor was there anyone around to work the ground (the whole Earth was watered by underground springs)—God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul!

8–9  Then God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the Man he had just made in it. God made all kinds of trees grow from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good to eat. The Tree-of-Life was in the middle of the garden, also the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil.

10–14  A river flows out of Eden to water the garden and from there divides into four rivers. The first is named Pishon; it flows through Havilah where there is gold. The gold of this land is good. The land is also known for a sweet-scented resin and the onyx stone. The second river is named Gihon; it flows through the land of Cush. The third river is named Hiddekel and flows east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

15  God took the Man and set him down in the Garden of Eden to work the ground and keep it in order.

16–17  God commanded the Man, “You can eat from any tree in the garden, except from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Don’t eat from it. The moment you eat from that tree, you’re dead.”

18–20  God said, “It’s not good for the Man to be alone; I’ll make him a helper, a companion.” So God formed from the dirt of the ground all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the Man to see what he would name them. Whatever the Man called each living creature, that was its name. The Man named the cattle, named the birds of the air, named the wild animals; but he didn’t find a suitable companion.

21–22  God put the Man into a deep sleep. As he slept he removed one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh. God then used the rib that he had taken from the Man to make Woman and presented her to the Man.

23–25  The Man said,

“Finally! Bone of my bone,

flesh of my flesh!

Name her Woman

for she was made from Man.”

Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife. They become one flesh.

The two of them, the Man and his Wife, were naked, but they felt no shame.

1  3 The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”

2–3  The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’ ”

4–5  The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”

6  When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.

7  Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.

8  When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.

9  God called to the Man: “Where are you?”

10  He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”

11  God said, “Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?”

12  The Man said, “The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it.”

God said to the Woman, “What is this that you’ve done?”

13  “The serpent seduced me,” she said, “and I ate.”

14–15  God told the serpent:

“Because you’ve done this, you’re cursed,

cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals,

Cursed to slink on your belly

and eat dirt all…