Genesis 1-3

Common English Bible

World’s creation in seven days

1 When God began to create^[a] the heavens and the earth— ² the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters— ³ God said, “Let there be light.” And so light appeared. ⁴ God saw how good the light was. God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God named the light Day and the darkness Night.

There was evening and there was morning: the first day.

⁶ God said, “Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters to separate the waters from each other.” ⁷ God made the dome and separated the waters under the dome from the waters above the dome. And it happened in that way. ⁸ God named the dome Sky.

There was evening and there was morning: the second day.

⁹ God said, “Let the waters under the sky come together into one place so that the dry land can appear.” And that’s what happened. ¹⁰ God named the dry land Earth, and he named the gathered waters Seas. God saw how good it was. ¹¹ God said, “Let the earth grow plant life: plants yielding seeds and fruit trees bearing fruit with seeds inside it, each according to its kind throughout the earth.” And that’s what happened. ¹² The earth produced plant life: plants yielding seeds, each according to its kind, and trees bearing fruit with seeds inside it, each according to its kind. God saw how good it was.

¹³ There was evening and there was morning: the third day.

¹⁴ God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will mark events, sacred seasons, days, and years. ¹⁵ They will be lights in the dome of the sky to shine on the earth.” And that’s what happened. ¹⁶ God made the stars and two great lights: the larger light to rule over the day and the smaller light to rule over the night. ¹⁷ God put them in the dome of the sky to shine on the earth, ¹⁸ to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw how good it was.

¹⁹ There was evening and there was morning: the fourth day.

²⁰ God said, “Let the waters swarm with living things, and let birds fly above the earth up in the dome of the sky.” ²¹ God created the great sea animals and all the tiny living things that swarm in the waters, each according to its kind, and all the winged birds, each according to its kind. God saw how good it was. ²² Then God blessed them: “Be fertile and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.”

²³ There was evening and there was morning: the fifth day.

²⁴ God said, “Let the earth produce every kind of living thing: livestock, crawling things, and wildlife.” And that’s what happened. ²⁵ God made every kind of wildlife, every kind of livestock, and every kind of creature that crawls on the ground. God saw how good it was. ²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth.”

²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and master it. Take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, and everything crawling on the ground.” ²⁹ Then God said, “I now give to you all the plants on the earth that yield seeds and all the trees whose fruit produces its seeds within it. These will be your food. ³⁰ To all wildlife, to all the birds in the sky, and to everything crawling on the ground—to everything that breathes—I give all the green grasses for food.” And that’s what happened. ³¹ God saw everything he had made: it was supremely good.

There was evening and there was morning: the sixth day.

2 The heavens and the earth and all who live in them were completed. ² On the sixth ^[c] day God completed all the work that he had done, and on the seventh day God rested from all the work that he had done. ³ God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all the work of creation.^{[d] 4} This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

World’s creation in the garden

On the day the Lord God made earth and sky— ⁵ before any wild plants appeared on the earth, and before any field crops grew, because the Lord God hadn’t yet sent rain on the earth and there was still no human being^[e] to farm the fertile land, ⁶ though a stream rose from the earth and watered all of the fertile land— ⁷ the Lord God formed the human^[f] from the topsoil of the fertile land^[g] and blew life’s breath into his nostrils. The human came to life. ⁸ The Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east and put there the human he had formed. ⁹ In the fertile land, the Lord God grew every beautiful tree with edible fruit, and also he grew the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰ A river flows from Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides into four headwaters. ¹¹ The name of the first river is the Pishon. It flows around the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹² That land’s gold is pure, and the land also has sweet-smelling resins and gemstones. ^{[h] 13} The name of the second river is the Gihon. It flows around the entire land of Cush. ¹⁴ The name of the third river is the Tigris, flowing east of Assyria; and the name of the fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵ The Lord God took the human and settled him in the garden of Eden to farm it and to take care of it. ¹⁶ The Lord God commanded the human, “Eat your fill from all of the garden’s trees; ¹⁷ but don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because on the day you eat from it, you will die!” ¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It’s not good that the human is alone. I will make him a helper that is perfect for him.” ¹⁹ So the Lord God formed from the fertile land all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky and brought them to the human to see what he would name them. The human gave each living being its name. ²⁰ The human named all the livestock, all the birds in the sky, and all the wild animals. But a helper perfect for him was nowhere to be found.

²¹ So the Lord God put the human into a deep and heavy sleep, and took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh over it. ²² With the rib taken from the human, the Lord God fashioned a woman and brought her to the human being. ²³ The human^[i] said,

²⁴ This is the reason that a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife, and they become one flesh. ²⁵ The two of them were naked, the man and his wife, but they weren’t embarrassed.

Knowledge, not eternal life

3 The snake was the most intelligent^[l] of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say that you shouldn’t eat from any tree in the garden?”

² The woman said to the snake, “We may eat the fruit of the garden’s trees ³ but not the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. God said, ‘Don’t eat from it, and don’t touch it, or you will die.’”

⁴ The snake said to the woman, “You won’t die! ⁵ God knows that on the day you eat from it, you will see clearly and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶ The woman saw that the tree was beautiful with delicious food and that the tree would provide wisdom, so she took some of its fruit and ate it, and also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then they both saw clearly and knew that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made garments for themselves.

⁸ During that day’s cool evening breeze, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden; and the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God in the middle of the garden’s trees. ⁹ The Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ The man^[m] replied, “I heard your sound in the garden; I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

¹¹ He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree, which I commanded you not to eat?”

¹² The man said, “The woman you gave me, she gave me some fruit^[n] from the tree, and I ate.”

¹³ The Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?!”

And the woman said, “The snake tricked me, and I ate.”

¹⁴ The Lord God said to the snake,

¹⁵ I will put contempt

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

¹⁷ To the man he said, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and you ate from the tree that I commanded, ‘Don’t eat from it,’

²⁰ The man named his wife Eve^[o] because she is the mother of everyone who lives. ²¹ The Lord God made the man and his wife leather clothes and dressed them. ²² The Lord God said, “The human being^[p] has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Now, so he doesn’t stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever, ²³ the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to farm the fertile land from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove out the human. To the east of the garden of Eden, he stationed winged creatures wielding flaming swords to guard the way to the tree of life.