The Beginning

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

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.”

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

Adam and Eve

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.

(The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.)

The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.

The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

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

but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

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

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

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.

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.”

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?

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.”

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear.

If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.”

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.

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.

So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.