Genesis 1–11

The Beginning of the World

1In the beginning God created the sky and the earth. ²The earth was empty and had no form. Darkness covered the ocean, and God’s Spirit was moving over the water.

³Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴God saw that the light was good, so he divided the light from the darkness. ⁵God named the light “day” and the darkness “night.” Evening passed, and morning came. This was the first day.

⁶Then God said, “Let there be something to divide the water in two.” ⁷So God made the air and placed some of the water above the air and some below it. ⁸God named the air “sky.” Evening passed, and morning came. This was the second day.

⁹Then God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered together so the dry land will appear.” And it happened. ¹⁰God named the dry land “earth” and the water that was gathered together “seas.” God saw that this was good.

¹¹Then God said, “Let the earth produce plants—some to make grain for seeds and others to make fruits with seeds in them. Every seed will produce more of its own kind of plant.” And it happened. ¹²The earth produced plants with grain for seeds and trees that made fruits with seeds in them. Each seed grew its own kind of plant. God saw that all this was good. ¹³Evening passed, and morning came. This was the third day.

¹⁴Then God said, “Let there be lights in the sky to separate day from night. These lights will be used for signs, seasons, days, and years. ¹⁵They will be in the sky to give light to the earth.” And it happened.

¹⁶So God made the two large lights. He made the brighter light to rule the day and made the smaller light to rule the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷God put all these in the sky to shine on the earth, ¹⁸to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw that all these things were good. ¹⁹Evening passed, and morning came. This was the fourth day.

²⁰Then God said, “Let the water be filled with living things, and let birds fly in the air above the earth.”

²¹So God created the large sea animals and every living thing that moves in the sea. The sea is filled with these living things, with each one producing more of its own kind. He also made every bird that flies, and each bird produced more of its own kind. God saw that this was good. ²²God blessed them and said, “Have many young ones so that you may grow in number. Fill the water of the seas, and let the birds grow in number on the earth.” ²³Evening passed, and morning came. This was the fifth day.

²⁴Then God said, “Let the earth be filled with animals, each producing more of its own kind. Let there be tame animals and small crawling animals and wild animals, and let each produce more of its kind.” And it happened.

²⁵So God made the wild animals, the tame animals, and all the small crawling animals to produce more of their own kind. God saw that this was good.

²⁶Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image and likeness. And let them rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the tame animals, over all the earth, and over all the small crawling animals on the earth.”

²⁷So God created human beings in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female. ²⁸God blessed them and said, “Have many children and grow in number. Fill the earth and be its master. Rule over the fish in the sea and over the birds in the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

²⁹God said, “Look, I have given you all the plants that have grain for seeds and all the trees whose fruits have seeds in them. They will be food for you. ³⁰I have given all the green plants as food for every wild animal, every bird of the air, and every small crawling animal.” And it happened. ³¹God looked at everything he had made, and it was very good. Evening passed, and morning came. This was the sixth day.

The Seventh Day—Rest

2So the sky, the earth, and all that filled them were finished. ²By the seventh day God finished the work he had been doing, so he rested from all his work. ³God blessed the seventh day and made it a holy day, because on that day he rested from all the work he had done in creating the world.

The First People

⁴This is the story of the creation of the sky and the earth. When the Lord God first made the earth and the sky, ⁵there were still no plants on the earth. Nothing was growing in the fields because the Lord God had not yet made it rain on the land. And there was no person to care for the ground, ⁶but a mist would rise up from the earth and water all the ground.

⁷Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and formed a man from it. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nose, and the man became a living person. ⁸Then the Lord God planted a garden in the east, in a place called Eden, and put the man he had formed into it. ⁹The Lord God caused every beautiful tree and every tree that was good for food to grow out of the ground. In the middle of the garden, God put the tree that gives life and also the tree that gives the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰A river flowed through Eden and watered the garden. From there the river branched out to become four rivers. ¹¹The first river, named Pishon, flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹²The gold of that land is excellent. Bdellium and onyx ⁿ are also found there. ¹³The second river, named Gihon, flows around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴The third river, named Tigris, flows out of Assyria toward the east. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵The Lord God put the man in the garden of Eden to care for it and work it. ¹⁶The Lord God commanded him, “You may eat the fruit from any tree in the garden, ¹⁷but you must not eat the fruit from the tree which gives the knowledge of good and evil. If you ever eat fruit from that tree, you will die!”

The First Woman

¹⁸Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is right for him.”

¹⁹From the ground God formed every wild animal and every bird in the sky, and he brought them to the man so the man could name them. Whatever the man called each living thing, that became its name. ²⁰The man gave names to all the tame animals, to the birds in the sky, and to all the wild animals. But Adam ⁿ did not find a helper that was right for him. ²¹So the Lord God caused the man to sleep very deeply, and while he was asleep, God removed one of the man’s ribs. Then God closed up the man’s skin at the place where he took the rib. ²²The Lord God used the rib from the man to make a woman, and then he brought the woman to the man.

²³And the man said,

“Now, this is someone whose bones came from my bones,

whose body came from my body.

I will call her ‘woman,’

because she was taken out of man.”

²⁴So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body.

²⁵The man and his wife were naked, but they were not ashamed.

The Beginning of Sin

3Now the snake was the most clever of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day the snake said to the woman, “Did God really say that you must not eat fruit from any tree in the garden?”

²The woman answered the snake, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. ³But God told us, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch it, or you will die.’ ”

⁴But the snake said to the woman, “You will not die. ⁵God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, you will learn about good and evil and you will be like God!”

⁶The woman saw that the tree was beautiful, that its fruit was good to eat, and that it would make her wise. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of the fruit to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

⁷Then, it was as if their eyes were opened. They realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made something to cover themselves.

⁸Then they heard the Lord God walking in the garden during the cool part of the day, and the man and his wife hid from the Lord God among the trees in the garden. ⁹But the Lord God called to the man and said, “Where are you?”

¹⁰The man answered, “I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

¹¹God asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”

¹²The man said, “You gave this woman to me and she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it.”

¹³Then the Lord God said to the woman, “How could you have done such a thing?”

She answered, “The snake tricked me, so I ate the fruit.”

¹⁴The Lord God said to the snake,

“Because you did this,

a curse will be put on you.

You will be cursed as no other animal, tame or wild, will ever be.

You will crawl on your stomach,

and you will eat dust all the days of your life.

¹⁵I will make you and the woman

enemies to each other.

Your descendants and her descendants

will be enemies.

One of her descendants will crush your head,

and you will bite his heel.”

¹⁶Then God said to the woman,

“I will cause you to have much trouble

when you are pregnant,

and when you give birth to children,

you will have great pain.

You will greatly desire your husband,

but he will rule over you.”

¹⁷Then God said to the man, “You listened to what your wife said, and you ate fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat.

“So I will put a curse on the ground,

and you will have to work very hard for your food.

In pain you will eat its food

all the days of your life.

¹⁸The ground will produce thorns and weeds for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.

¹⁹You will sweat and work hard for your food.

Later you will return to the ground,

because you were taken from it.

You are dust,

and when you die, you will return to the dust.”

²⁰The man named his wife Eve, ⁿ because she was the mother of all the living.

²¹The Lord God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and dressed them. ²²Then the Lord God said,…