Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.

If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.”

Noah and the Flood

This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.

Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.

And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.

male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.

The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in.

For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.

By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.

“Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.

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 generations to come:

The Tower of Babel

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”

So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company:

Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.