²⁶ Then God said, ^(A)“Let us make man^[a] in our image, ^(B)after our likeness. And ^(C)let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

²⁸ And God blessed them. And God said to them, ^(E)“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” ²⁹ And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. ^(F)You shall have them for food. ³⁰ And ^(G)to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. ^31 (H)And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

The Creation of Man and Woman

⁵ When no ^(B)bush of the field^[a] was yet in the land^[b] and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man ^(C)to work the ground, ⁶ and a mist^[c] was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— ⁷ then the Lord God formed the man of ^(D)dust from the ground and ^(E)breathed into his ^(F)nostrils the breath of life, and ^(G)the man became a living creature. ⁸ And the Lord God planted a ^(H)garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. ⁹ And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. ^(I)The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, ^(J)and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰ A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. ¹¹ The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of ^(K)Havilah, where there is gold. ¹² And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. ¹³ The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴ And the name of the third river is the ^(L)Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵ The Lord God took the man ^(M)and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ^(N)you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat^[d] of it you ^(O)shall surely die.”

¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; ^(P)I will make him a helper fit for^[e] him.” ^19 (Q)Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed^[f] every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and ^(R)brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam^[g] there was not found a helper fit for him. ²¹ So the Lord God caused a ^(S)deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²² And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made^[h] into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³ Then the man said,

^24 (V)Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. ²⁵ And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

⁹ Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. ¹⁰ For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! ¹¹ Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, ^(A)but how can one keep warm alone? ¹² And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.