Six Days of Creation and the Sabbath

1 When God began to create^[a] the heavens and the earth,^{(A) 2} the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God^[b] swept over the face of the waters.^(B)

³¹ God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.^(A)

2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all their multitude.^{(B) 2} On the sixth^[a] day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.^{(C) 3} So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.^(D)

²⁵ I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild animals from the land, so that they may live in the wild and sleep in the woods securely.^{(A) 26} I will make them and the region around my hill a blessing, and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing.^{(B) 27} The trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase. They shall be secure on their soil, and they shall know that I am the Lord when I break the bars of their yoke and save them from the hands of those who enslaved them.^{(C) 28} They shall no more be plunder for the nations, nor shall the animals of the land devour them; they shall live in safety, and no one shall make them afraid.^{(D) 29} I will provide for them a splendid vegetation so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land and no longer suffer the insults of the nations.^{(E) 30} They shall know that I, the Lord their God, am with them and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, says the Lord God. ³¹ You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture,^[a] and I am your God, says the Lord God.^(F)

Pronouncement about the Sabbath

²³ One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields, and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.^{(A) 24} The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” ²⁵ And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food, ²⁶ how he entered the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions?”^{(B) 27} Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath,^{(C) 28} so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”