Genesis 1:1-3
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
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) 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.(C)
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Genesis 1:1-5
The Message
Heaven and Earth
1 1-2 First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.
3-5 God spoke: “Light!”
And light appeared.
God saw that light was good
and separated light from dark.
God named the light Day,
he named the dark Night.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day One.
Genesis 1:26
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
26 Then God said, “Let us make humans[a] in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth[b] and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”(A)
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Genesis 1:26-28
The Message
26-28 God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
Genesis 2:15
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
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Genesis 2:15
The Message
15 God took the Man and set him down in the Garden of Eden to work the ground and keep it in order.
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Jeremiah 2:7
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
7 I brought you into a plentiful land
to eat its fruits and its good things.
But when you entered you defiled my land
and made my heritage an abomination.(A)
Jeremiah 2:7-8
The Message
7-8 “I brought you to a garden land
where you could eat lush fruit.
But you barged in and polluted my land,
trashed and defiled my dear land.
The priests never thought to ask, ‘Where’s God?’
The religion experts knew nothing of me.
The rulers defied me.
The prophets preached god Baal
And chased empty god-dreams and silly god-schemes.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson