The Living Bible (3 page)

Genesis
2

Now at last the heavens and earth were successfully completed, with all that they contained.
²
 So on the seventh day, having finished his task, God ceased from this work he had been doing,
³
 and God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he ceased this work of creation.

    
⁴
 Here is a summary of the events in the creation of the heavens and earth when the Lord God made them.

    
⁵
 There were no plants or grain sprouting up across the earth at first, for the Lord God hadn’t sent any rain; nor was there anyone to farm the soil.
⁶
 (However, water welled up from the ground at certain places and flowed across the land.)

    
⁷
 The time came when the Lord God formed a man’s body from the dust of the ground
*
and breathed into it the breath of life. And man became a living person.

    
⁸
 Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, to the east, and placed in the garden the man he had formed.
⁹
 The Lord God planted all sorts of beautiful trees there in the garden, trees producing the choicest of fruit. At the center of the garden he placed the Tree of Life, and also the Tree of Conscience, giving knowledge of Good and Bad.
¹⁰
 A river from the land of Eden flowed through the garden to water it; afterwards the river divided into four branches.
^11-12
 One of these was named the Pishon; it winds across the entire length of the land of Havilah,
*
where nuggets of pure gold are found, also beautiful bdellium and even lapis lazuli.
¹³
 The second branch is called the Gihon, crossing the entire length of the land of Cush.
¹⁴
 The third branch is the Tigris, which flows to the east of the city of Asher. And the fourth is the Euphrates.

    
¹⁵
 The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden as its gardener, to tend and care for it.
^16-17
 But the Lord God gave the man this warning: “You may eat any fruit in the garden except fruit from the Tree of Conscience—for its fruit will open your eyes to make you aware of right and wrong, good and bad. If you eat its fruit, you will be doomed to die.”

    
¹⁸
 And the Lord God said, “It isn’t good for man to be alone; I will make a companion for him, a helper suited to his needs.”
^19-20
 So the Lord God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever he called them, that was their name. But still there was no proper helper for the man.
²¹
 Then the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and took one of his ribs and closed up the place from which he had removed it,
²²
 and made the rib into a woman, and brought her to the man.

    
²³
 “This is it!” Adam exclaimed. “She is part of my own bone and flesh! Her name is ‘woman’ because she was taken out of a man.”
²⁴
 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife in such a way that the two become one person.
*
²⁵
 Now although the man and his wife were both naked, neither of them was embarrassed or ashamed.

Genesis
3

The serpent was the craftiest of all the creatures the Lord God had made. So the serpent came to the woman. “Really?” he asked.
“None
of the fruit in the garden? God says you mustn’t eat
any
of it?”

    
^2-3
 “Of course we may eat it,” the woman told him. “It’s only the fruit from the tree at the
center
of the garden that we are not to eat. God says we mustn’t eat it or even touch it, or we will die.”

    
⁴
 “That’s a lie!” the serpent hissed. “You’ll not die!
⁵
 God knows very well that the instant you eat it you will become like him, for your eyes will be opened—you will be able to distinguish good from evil!”

    
⁶
 The woman was convinced. How lovely and fresh looking it was! And it would make her so wise! So she ate some of the fruit and gave some to her husband, and he ate it too.
⁷
 And as they ate it, suddenly they became aware of their nakedness, and were embarrassed. So they strung fig leaves together to cover themselves around the hips.

    
⁸
 That evening they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden; and they hid themselves among the trees.
⁹
 The Lord God called to Adam, “Why are you hiding?”
*

    
¹⁰
 And Adam replied, “I heard you coming and didn’t want you to see me naked. So I hid.”

    
¹¹
 “Who told you you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten fruit from the tree I warned you about?”

    
¹²
 “Yes,” Adam admitted, “but it was the woman you gave me who brought me some, and I ate it.”

    
¹³
 Then the Lord God asked the woman, “How could you do such a thing?”

    
“The serpent tricked me,” she replied.

    
¹⁴
 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “This is your punishment: You are singled out from among all the domestic and wild animals of the whole earth—to be cursed. You shall grovel in the dust as long as you live, crawling along on your belly.
¹⁵
 From now on you and the woman will be enemies, as will your offspring and hers. You will strike his heel, but he will crush your head.”

    
¹⁶
 Then God said to the woman, “You shall bear children in intense pain and suffering; yet even so, you shall welcome your husband’s affections, and he shall be your master.”

    
¹⁷
 And to Adam, God said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit when I told you not to, I have placed a curse upon the soil. All your life you will struggle to extract a living from it.
¹⁸
 It will grow thorns and thistles for you, and you shall eat its grasses.
¹⁹
 All your life you will sweat to master it, until your dying day. Then you will return to the ground from which you came. For you were made from the ground, and to the ground you will return.”

    
²⁰
 The man named his wife Eve (meaning “The life-giving one”),
*
for he said, “She shall become the mother of all mankind”;
²¹
 and the Lord God clothed Adam and his wife with garments made from skins of animals.

    
²²
 Then the Lord said, “Now that the man has become as we are, knowing good from bad, what if he eats the fruit of the Tree of Life and lives forever?”
²³
 So the Lord God banished him forever from the Garden of Eden, and sent him out to farm the ground from which he had been taken.
²⁴
 Thus God expelled him, and placed mighty angels at the east of the Garden of Eden, with a flaming sword to guard the entrance to the Tree of Life.

Genesis
4

Then Adam had sexual intercourse with Eve his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to a son, Cain (meaning “I have created”). For, as she said, “With God’s help, I have created a man!”
²
 Her next child was his brother, Abel.

    
Abel became a shepherd, while Cain was a farmer.
³
 At harvest time Cain brought the Lord a gift of his farm produce,
⁴
 and Abel brought the fatty cuts of meat from his best lambs, and presented them to the Lord. And the Lord accepted Abel’s offering,
⁵
 but not Cain’s. This made Cain both dejected and very angry, and his face grew dark with fury.

    
⁶
 “Why are you angry?” the Lord asked him. “Why is your face so dark with rage?
⁷
 It can be bright with joy if you will do what you should! But if you refuse to obey, watch out. Sin is waiting to attack you, longing to destroy you. But you can conquer it!”

    
⁸
 One day Cain suggested to his brother, “Let’s go out into the fields.” And while they were together there, Cain attacked and killed his brother.

    
⁹
 But afterwards the Lord asked Cain, “Where is your brother? Where is Abel?”

    
“How should I know?” Cain retorted. “Am I supposed to keep track of him wherever he goes?”

    
¹⁰
 But the Lord said, “Your brother’s blood calls to me from the ground. What have you done?
¹¹
 You are hereby banished from this ground which you have defiled with your brother’s blood.
¹²
 No longer will it yield crops for you, even if you toil on it forever! From now on you will be a fugitive and a tramp upon the earth, wandering from place to place.”

    
¹³
 Cain replied to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.
¹⁴
 For you have banished me from my farm and from you, and made me a fugitive and a tramp; and everyone who sees me will try to kill me.”

    
¹⁵
 The Lord replied, “They won’t kill you, for I will give seven times your punishment to anyone who does.” Then the Lord put an identifying mark on Cain as a warning not to kill him.
¹⁶
 So Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

    
¹⁷
 Then Cain’s wife conceived and presented him with a baby son named Enoch; so when Cain founded a city, he named it Enoch, after his son.

    
¹⁸
 Enoch was the father of
*
Irad; Irad was the father of Mehujael; Mehujael was the father of Methusael; Methusael was the father of Lamech.

    
¹⁹
 Lamech married two wives—Adah and Zillah.
²⁰
 To Adah was born a baby named Jabal. He became the first of the cattlemen and those living in tents.
²¹
 His brother’s name was Jubal, the first musician—the inventor of the harp and flute.
*
²²
 To Lamech’s other wife, Zillah, was born Tubal-cain. He opened the first foundry
*
forging instruments of bronze and iron.

    
²³
 One day Lamech said to Adah and Zillah, “Listen to me, my wives. I have killed a youth who attacked and wounded me.
²⁴
 If anyone who kills Cain will be punished seven times, anyone taking revenge against me for killing that youth should be punished seventy-seven times!”

    
²⁵
 Later on Eve gave birth to another son and named him Seth (meaning “Granted”); for, as Eve put it, “God has granted me another son for the one Cain killed.”
²⁶
 When Seth grew up, he had a son and named him Enosh. It was during his lifetime that men first began to call themselves “the Lord’s people.”
*