12 God had told Abram, “Leave your own country behind you, and your own people, and go to the land I will guide you to. ² If you do, I will cause you to become the father of a great nation; I will bless you and make your name famous, and you will be a blessing to many others.^{[a] 3} I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and the entire world will be blessed because of you.”^[b]

⁴ So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed him, and Lot went too; Abram was seventy-five years old at that time. ⁵ He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all his wealth—the cattle and slaves he had gotten in Haran—and finally arrived in Canaan. ⁶ Traveling through Canaan, they came to a place near Shechem, and set up camp beside the oak at Moreh. (This area was inhabited by Canaanites at that time.)

⁷ Then Jehovah appeared to Abram and said, “I am going to give this land to your descendants.” And Abram built an altar there to commemorate Jehovah’s visit. ⁸ Afterwards Abram left that place and traveled southward^[c] to the hilly country between Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he made camp, and made an altar to the Lord and prayed to him. ⁹ Thus he continued slowly southward to the Negeb, pausing frequently.

¹⁰ There was at that time a terrible famine in the land: and so Abram went on down to Egypt to live. ^11-13 But as he was approaching the borders of Egypt, he asked Sarai his wife to tell everyone that she was his sister! “You are very beautiful,” he told her, “and when the Egyptians see you they will say, ‘This is his wife. Let’s kill him and then we can have her!’ But if you say you are my sister, then the Egyptians will treat me well because of you, and spare my life!” ¹⁴ And sure enough, when they arrived in Egypt everyone spoke of her beauty. ¹⁵ When the palace aides saw her, they praised her to their king, the Pharaoh, and she was taken into his harem.^{[d] 16} Then Pharaoh gave Abram many gifts because of her—sheep, oxen, donkeys, men and women slaves, and camels.

¹⁷ But the Lord sent a terrible plague upon Pharaoh’s household on account of her being there. ¹⁸ Then Pharaoh called Abram before him and accused him sharply. “What is this you have done to me?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? ¹⁹ Why were you willing to let me marry her, saying she was your sister? Here, take her and be gone!” ²⁰ And Pharaoh sent them out of the country under armed escort—Abram, his wife, and all his household and possessions.

2 Now at last the heavens and earth were successfully completed, with all that they contained. ² So on the seventh day, having finished his task, God ceased from this work he had been doing, ³ and God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he ceased this work of creation.

⁴ Here is a summary of the events in the creation of the heavens and earth when the Lord God made them.

⁵ There were no plants or grain sprouting up across the earth at first, for the Lord God hadn’t sent any rain; nor was there anyone to farm the soil. ⁶ (However, water welled up from the ground at certain places and flowed across the land.)

⁷ The time came when the Lord God formed a man’s body from the dust of the ground^[a] and breathed into it the breath of life. And man became a living person.

⁸ Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, to the east, and placed in the garden the man he had formed. ⁹ The Lord God planted all sorts of beautiful trees there in the garden, trees producing the choicest of fruit. At the center of the garden he placed the Tree of Life, and also the Tree of Conscience, giving knowledge of Good and Bad. ¹⁰ A river from the land of Eden flowed through the garden to water it; afterwards the river divided into four branches. ^11-12 One of these was named the Pishon; it winds across the entire length of the land of Havilah,^[b] where nuggets of pure gold are found, also beautiful bdellium and even lapis lazuli. ¹³ The second branch is called the Gihon, crossing the entire length of the land of Cush. ¹⁴ The third branch is the Tigris, which flows to the east of the city of Asher. And the fourth is the Euphrates.

¹⁵ The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden as its gardener, to tend and care for it. ^16-17 But the Lord God gave the man this warning: “You may eat any fruit in the garden except fruit from the Tree of Conscience—for its fruit will open your eyes to make you aware of right and wrong, good and bad. If you eat its fruit, you will be doomed to die.”

¹⁸ And the Lord God said, “It isn’t good for man to be alone; I will make a companion for him, a helper suited to his needs.” ^19-20 So the Lord God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever he called them, that was their name. But still there was no proper helper for the man. ²¹ Then the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and took one of his ribs and closed up the place from which he had removed it, ²² and made the rib into a woman, and brought her to the man.

²³ “This is it!” Adam exclaimed. “She is part of my own bone and flesh! Her name is ‘woman’ because she was taken out of a man.” ²⁴ This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife in such a way that the two become one person.^{[c] 25} Now although the man and his wife were both naked, neither of them was embarrassed or ashamed.