Study Desk

Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image and likeness. And let them rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the tame animals, over all the earth, and over all the small crawling animals on the earth."

So God created human beings in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female.

God blessed them and said, "Have many children and grow in number. Fill the earth and be its master. Rule over the fish in the sea and over the birds in the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

God said, "Look, I have given you all the plants that have grain for seeds and all the trees whose fruits have seeds in them. They will be food for you.

God looked at everything he had made, and it was very good. Evening passed, and morning came. This was the sixth day.

By the seventh day God finished the work he had been doing, so he rested from all his work.

God blessed the seventh day and made it a holy day, because on that day he rested from all the work he had done in creating the world.

This is the story of the creation of the sky and the earth. When the Lord God first made the earth and the sky,

there were still no plants on the earth. Nothing was growing in the fields because the Lord God had not yet made it rain on the land. And there was no person to care for the ground,

Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and formed a man from it. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nose, and the man became a living person.

Then the Lord God planted a garden in the east, in a place called Eden, and put the man he had formed into it.

The Lord God caused every beautiful tree and every tree that was good for food to grow out of the ground. In the middle of the garden, God put the tree that gives life and also the tree that gives the knowledge of good and evil.

The Lord God put the man in the garden of Eden to care for it and work it.

The Lord God commanded him, "You may eat the fruit from any tree in the garden,

Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is right for him."

From the ground God formed every wild animal and every bird in the sky, and he brought them to the man so the man could name them. Whatever the man called each living thing, that became its name.

So the Lord God caused the man to sleep very deeply, and while he was asleep, God removed one of the man's ribs. Then God closed up the man's skin at the place where he took the rib.

The Lord God used the rib from the man to make a woman, and then he brought the woman to the man.

Now the snake was the most clever of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day the snake said to the woman, "Did God really say that you must not eat fruit from any tree in the garden?"

But God told us, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch it, or you will die.'"