This is the story about the creation of the sky and the earth. This is what happened when the Lord God made the earth and the sky. This was before there were plants on the earth. Nothing was growing in the fields because the Lord God had not yet made it rain on the earth, and there was no one to care for the plants.
So water came up from the earth and spread over the ground.
Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and made a man.
He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nose, and the man became a living thing.
Then the Lord God planted a garden in the East, in a place named Eden.
He put the man he made in that garden. Then the Lord God caused all the beautiful trees that were good for food to grow in the garden.
In the middle of the garden, he put the tree of life and the tree that gives knowledge about good and evil.
A river flowed from Eden and watered the garden. The river then separated and became four smaller rivers.
The Lord God put the man in the Garden of Eden to work the soil and take care of the garden.
The Lord God gave him this command: “You may eat from any tree in the garden. But you must not eat from the tree that gives knowledge about good and evil. If you eat fruit from that tree, on that day you will certainly die!”
The Lord God used dust from the ground and made every animal in the fields and every bird in the air. He brought all these animals to the man, and the man gave them all a name.
The man gave names to all the tame animals, to all the birds in the air, and to all the wild animals. He saw many animals and birds, but he could not find a companion that was right for him. So the Lord God caused the man to sleep very deeply. While he was asleep, God took one of the ribs from the man’s body. Then he closed the man’s skin where the rib had been.
The Lord God used the rib from the man to make a woman. Then he brought the woman to the man. And the man said,
“Finally! One like me,
with bones from my bones
and a body from my body.
She was taken out of a man,
so I will call her ‘woman.’”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife. In this way two people become one.
with bones from my bones
and a body from my body.
She was taken out of a man,
so I will call her ‘woman.’”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife. In this way two people become one.
