Genesis 1-2
International Children’s Bible
The Beginning of the World
1 In the beginning God created the sky and the earth. 2 The earth was empty and had no form. Darkness covered the ocean, and God’s Spirit was moving over the water.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light!” And there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good. So he divided the light from the darkness. 5 God named the light “day” and the darkness “night.” Evening passed, and morning came. This was the first day.
6 Then God said, “Let there be something to divide the water in two!” 7 So God made the air to divide the water in two. Some of the water was above the air, and some of the water was below it. 8 God named the air “sky.” Evening passed, and morning came. This was the second day.
9 Then God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered together so the dry land will appear.” And it happened. 10 God named the dry land “earth.” He named the water that was gathered together “seas.” God saw that this was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the earth produce plants. Some plants will make grain for seeds. Others will make fruit with seeds in it. Every seed will produce more of its own kind of plant.” And it happened. 12 The earth produced plants. Some plants had grain for seeds. The trees made fruit with seeds in it. Each seed grew its own kind of plant. God saw that all this was good. 13 Evening passed, and morning came. This was the third day.
14 Then 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. 15 They will be in the sky to give light to the earth.” And it happened.
16 So God made the two large lights. He made the brighter light to rule the day. He made the smaller light to rule the night. He also made the stars. 17 God put all these in the sky to shine on the earth. 18 They are to rule over the day and over the night. He put them there to separate the light from the darkness. God saw that all these things were good. 19 Evening passed, and morning came. This was the fourth day.
20 Then God said, “Let the water be filled with living things. And let birds fly in the air above the earth.”
21 So God created the large sea animals. He created every living thing that moves in the sea. The sea is filled with these living things. Each one produces more of its own kind. God also made every bird that flies. And each bird produces more of its own kind. God saw that this was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Have many young ones and grow in number. Fill the water of the seas, and let the birds grow in number on the earth.” 23 Evening passed, and morning came. This was the fifth day.
24 Then God said, “Let the earth be filled with animals. And let each produce 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.
25 So 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.
26 Then 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. Let them rule over the tame animals, over all the earth and over all the small crawling animals on the earth.”
27 So God created human beings in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female. 28 God 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. Rule over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
29 God said, “Look, I have given you all the plants that have grain for seeds. And I have given you all the trees whose fruits have seeds in them. They will be food for you. 30 I have given all the green plants to all the animals to eat. They will be food for every wild animal, every bird of the air and every small crawling animal.” And it happened. 31 God 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
2 So the sky, the earth and all that filled them were finished. 2 By the seventh day God finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 God blessed the seventh day and made it a holy day. He made it holy because on that day he rested. He rested from all the work he had done in creating the world.
The First People
4 This is the story of the creation of the sky and the earth. When the Lord God made the earth and the sky, 5 there were no plants on the earth. Nothing was growing in the fields. The Lord God had not yet made it rain on the land. And there was no man to care for the ground. 6 But a mist often rose from the earth and watered all the ground.
7 Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and formed man from it. The Lord breathed the breath of life into the man’s nose. And the man became a living person. 8 Then the Lord God planted a garden in the East, in a place called Eden. He put the man he had formed in that garden. 9 The 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 he put there the tree that gives the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river flowed through Eden and watered the garden. From that point the river was divided. It had four streams flowing into it. 11 The name of the first stream is Pishon. It flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 That gold is good. Bdellium and onyx[a] are also there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon. It flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris. It flows out of Assyria toward the east. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 The Lord God put the man in the garden of Eden to care for it and work it. 16 The Lord God commanded him, “You may eat the fruit from any tree in the garden. 17 But 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
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is right for him.”
19 From the ground God formed every wild animal and every bird in the sky. He brought them to the man so the man could name them. Whatever the man called each living thing, that became its name. 20 The man gave names to all the tame animals, to the birds in the sky and to all the wild animals. But Adam[b] did not find a helper that was right for him. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to sleep very deeply. While the man was asleep, God took one of the ribs from the man’s body. Then God closed the man’s skin at the place where he took the rib. 22 The Lord God used the rib from the man to make a woman. Then the Lord brought the woman to the man.
23 And the man said,
“Now, this is someone whose bones came from my bones.
Her body came from my body.
I will call her ‘woman,’
because she was taken out of man.”
24 So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife. And the two people will become one body.
25 The man and his wife were naked, but they were not ashamed.
Matthew 1:1-2:12
International Children’s Bible
The Family History of Jesus
1 This is the family history of Jesus Christ. He came from the family of David. David came from the family of Abraham.
2 Abraham was the father[a] of Isaac.
Isaac was the father of Jacob.
Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.
3 Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah.
(Their mother was Tamar.)
Perez was the father of Hezron.
Hezron was the father of Ram.
4 Ram was the father of Amminadab.
Amminadab was the father of Nahshon.
Nahshon was the father of Salmon.
5 Salmon was the father of Boaz.
(Boaz’s mother was Rahab.)
Boaz was the father of Obed.
(Obed’s mother was Ruth.)
Obed was the father of Jesse.
6 Jesse was the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon.
(Solomon’s mother had been Uriah’s wife.)
7 Solomon was the father of Rehoboam.
Rehoboam was the father of Abijah.
Abijah was the father of Asa.[b]
8 Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat.
Jehoshaphat was the father of Jehoram.
Jehoram was the ancestor of Uzziah.
9 Uzziah was the father of Jotham.
Jotham was the father of Ahaz.
Ahaz was the father of Hezekiah.
10 Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh.
Manasseh was the father of Amon.
Amon was the father of Josiah.
11 Josiah was the grandfather of Jehoiachin[c] and his brothers.
(This was at the time that the people were taken to Babylon.)
12 After they were taken to Babylon:
Jehoiachin was the father of Shealtiel.
Shealtiel was the grandfather of Zerubbabel.
13 Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud.
Abiud was the father of Eliakim.
Eliakim was the father of Azor.
14 Azor was the father of Zadok.
Zadok was the father of Akim.
Akim was the father of Eliud.
15 Eliud was the father of Eleazar.
Eleazar was the father of Matthan.
Matthan was the father of Jacob.
16 Jacob was the father of Joseph.
Joseph was the husband of Mary,
and Mary was the mother of Jesus.
Jesus is called the Christ.
17 So there were 14 generations from Abraham to David. And there were 14 generations from David until the time when the people were taken to Babylon. And there were 14 generations from the time when the people were taken to Babylon until Christ was born.
The Birth of Jesus Christ
18 The mother of Jesus Christ was Mary. And this is how the birth of Jesus came about. Mary was engaged to marry Joseph. But before they married, she learned that she was going to have a baby. She was pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit. 19 Mary’s husband, Joseph, was a good man. He did not want to disgrace her in public, so he planned to divorce her secretly.
20 While Joseph thought about this, an angel of the Lord came to him in a dream. The angel said, “Joseph, descendant of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife. The baby in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son. You will name the son Jesus.[d] Give him that name because he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All this happened to make clear the full meaning of what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will be pregnant. She will have a son, and they will name him Immanuel.”[e] This name means “God is with us.”
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the Lord’s angel had told him to do. Joseph married Mary. 25 But he did not have intimate relations with her until she gave birth to the son. And Joseph named the son Jesus.
Wise Men Come to Visit Jesus
2 Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judea during the time when Herod was king. After Jesus was born, some wise men from the east came to Jerusalem. 2 They asked, “Where is the baby who was born to be the king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east. We came to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard about this new king of the Jews, he was troubled. And all the people in Jerusalem were worried too. 4 Herod called a meeting of all the leading priests and teachers of the law. He asked them where the Christ would be born. 5 They answered, “In the town of Bethlehem in Judea. The prophet wrote about this in the Scriptures:
6 ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
you are important among the rulers of Judah.
A ruler will come from you.
He will be like a shepherd for my people, the Israelites.’” Micah 5:2
7 Then Herod had a secret meeting with the wise men from the east. He learned from them the exact time they first saw the star. 8 Then Herod sent the wise men to Bethlehem. He said to them, “Go and look carefully to find the child. When you find him, come tell me. Then I can go worship him too.”
9 The wise men heard the king and then left. They saw the same star they had seen in the east. It went before them until it stopped above the place where the child was. 10 When the wise men saw the star, they were filled with joy. 11 They went to the house where the child was and saw him with his mother, Mary. They bowed down and worshiped the child. They opened the gifts they brought for him. They gave him treasures of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 But God warned the wise men in a dream not to go back to Herod. So they went home to their own country by a different way.
Footnotes
- 1:2 father “Father” in Jewish lists of ancestors can sometimes mean grandfather or more distant relative.
- 1:7 Asa Some Greek copies read “Asaph,” another name for Asa (see 1 Chronicles 3:10).
- 1:11 Jehoiachin The Greek reads “Jeconiah,” another name for Jehoiachin (see 2 Kings 24:6 and 1 Chronicles 3:16).
- 1:21 Jesus The name Jesus means “salvation.”
- 1:23 “The virgin . . . Immanuel.” Quotation from Isaiah 7:14.
Psalm 1
International Children’s Bible
Book 1
Psalms 1—41
Two Ways to Live
1 Happy is the person who doesn’t listen to the wicked.
He doesn’t go where sinners go.
He doesn’t do what bad people do.
2 He loves the Lord’s teachings.
He thinks about those teachings day and night.
3 He is strong, like a tree planted by a river.
It produces fruit in season.
Its leaves don’t die.
Everything he does will succeed.
4 But wicked people are not like that.
They are like useless chaff
that the wind blows away.
5 So the wicked will not escape God’s punishment.
Sinners will not worship God with good people.
6 This is because the Lord protects good people.
But the wicked will be destroyed.
Proverbs 1:1-6
International Children’s Bible
Why Proverbs Is Important
1 These are the wise words of Solomon son of David. Solomon was king of Israel.
2 They teach wisdom and self-control.
They give understanding.
3 They will teach you how to be wise and self-controlled.
They will teach you what is honest and fair and right.
4 They give the ability to think to those with little knowledge.
They give knowledge and good sense to the young.
5 Wise people should also listen to them and learn even more.
Even they can find good advice in these words.
6 Then they will be able to understand wise words and stories.
They will understand the words of wise men and their riddles.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.
