Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

From Adam to Noah

This is the written account of Adam’s family line. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God.

When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.

God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.

I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.

He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.”

Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.

Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)

I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted.

And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

Hagar and Ishmael

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar;

so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree.

Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.

For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.

One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth.