Bible in 90 Days

The Beginning of the World

1 In the beginning God created the sky and the earth. ² The earth was empty and had no form. Darkness covered the ocean, and God’s Spirit was moving over the water.

³ Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, so he divided the light from the darkness. ⁵ God named the light “day” and the darkness “night.” Evening passed, and morning came. This was the first day.

⁶ Then God said, “Let there be something to divide the water in two.” ⁷ So God made the air and placed some of the water above the air and some below it. ⁸ God named the air “sky.” Evening passed, and morning came. This was the second day.

⁹ Then God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered together so the dry land will appear.” And it happened. ¹⁰ God named the dry land “earth” and the water that was gathered together “seas.” God saw that this was good.

¹¹ Then God said, “Let the earth produce plants—some to make grain for seeds and others to make fruits with seeds in them. Every seed will produce more of its own kind of plant.” And it happened. ¹² The earth produced plants with grain for seeds and trees that made fruits with seeds in them. Each seed grew its own kind of plant. God saw that all this was good. ¹³ Evening passed, and morning came. This was the third day.

¹⁴ Then God said, “Let there be lights in the sky to separate day from night. These lights will be used for signs, seasons, days, and years. ¹⁵ They will be in the sky to give light to the earth.” And it happened.

¹⁶ So God made the two large lights. He made the brighter light to rule the day and made the smaller light to rule the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷ God put all these in the sky to shine on the earth, ¹⁸ to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw that all these things were good. ¹⁹ Evening passed, and morning came. This was the fourth day.

²⁰ Then God said, “Let the water be filled with living things, and let birds fly in the air above the earth.”

²¹ So God created the large sea animals and every living thing that moves in the sea. The sea is filled with these living things, with each one producing more of its own kind. He also made every bird that flies, and each bird produced more of its own kind. God saw that this was good. ²² God blessed them and said, “Have many young ones so that you may grow in number. Fill the water of the seas, and let the birds grow in number on the earth.” ²³ Evening passed, and morning came. This was the fifth day.

²⁴ Then God said, “Let the earth be filled with animals, each producing more of its own kind. Let there be tame animals and small crawling animals and wild animals, and let each produce more of its kind.” And it happened.

²⁵ So God made the wild animals, the tame animals, and all the small crawling animals to produce more of their own kind. God saw that this was good.

²⁶ 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.”

²⁷ So God created human beings in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female. ²⁸ 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.”

²⁹ 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. ³⁰ I have given all the green plants as food for every wild animal, every bird of the air, and every small crawling animal.” And it happened. ³¹ God looked at everything he had made, and it was very good. Evening passed, and morning came. This was the sixth day.

The Seventh Day—Rest

2 So the sky, the earth, and all that filled them were finished. ² By the seventh day God finished the work he had been doing, so he rested from all his work. ³ 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.

The First People

⁴ This is the story of the creation of the sky and the earth. When the Lord God first made the earth and the sky, ⁵ 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, ⁶ but a mist would rise up from the earth and water all the ground.

⁷ 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. ⁸ Then the Lord God planted a garden in the east, in a place called Eden, and put the man he had formed into it. ⁹ 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.

¹⁰ A river flowed through Eden and watered the garden. From there the river branched out to become four rivers. ¹¹ The first river, named Pishon, flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹² The gold of that land is excellent. Bdellium and onyx^[a] are also found there. ¹³ The second river, named Gihon, flows around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴ The third river, named Tigris, flows out of Assyria toward the east. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵ The Lord God put the man in the garden of Eden to care for it and work it. ¹⁶ The Lord God commanded him, “You may eat the fruit from any tree in the garden, ¹⁷ but you must not eat the fruit from the tree which gives the knowledge of good and evil. If you ever eat fruit from that tree, you will die!”

The First Woman

¹⁸ 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.”

¹⁹ 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. ²⁰ The man gave names to all the tame animals, to the birds in the sky, and to all the wild animals. But Adam^[b] did not find a helper that was right for him. ²¹ 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. ²² The Lord God used the rib from the man to make a woman, and then he brought the woman to the man.

²³ And the man said,

²⁴ So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body.

²⁵ The man and his wife were naked, but they were not ashamed.

The Beginning of Sin

3 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?”

² The woman answered the snake, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. ³ 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.’”

⁴ But the snake said to the woman, “You will not die. ⁵ God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, you will learn about good and evil and you will be like God!”

⁶ The woman saw that the tree was beautiful, that its fruit was good to eat, and that it would make her wise. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of the fruit to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

⁷ Then, it was as if their eyes were opened. They realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made something to cover themselves.

⁸ Then they heard the Lord God walking in the garden during the cool part of the day, and the man and his wife hid from the Lord God among the trees in the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man and said, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ The man answered, “I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

¹¹ God asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”

¹² The man said, “You gave this woman to me and she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it.”

¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “How could you have done such a thing?”

She answered, “The snake tricked me, so I ate the fruit.”

¹⁴ The Lord God said to the snake,

¹⁶ Then God said to the woman,

¹⁷ Then God said to the man, “You listened to what your wife said, and you ate fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat.

²⁰ The man named his wife Eve,^[c] because she was the mother of all the living.

²¹ The Lord God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and dressed them. ²² Then the Lord God said, “Humans have become like one of us; they know good and evil. We must keep them from eating some of the fruit from the tree of life, or they will live forever.” ²³ So the Lord God forced Adam out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ After God forced humans out of the garden, he placed angels and a sword of fire that flashed around in every direction on its eastern border. This kept people from getting to the tree of life.

The First Family

4 Adam had sexual relations with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.^[d] Eve said, “With the Lord’s help, I have given birth to a man.” ² After that, Eve gave birth to Cain’s brother Abel. Abel took care of flocks, and Cain became a farmer.

³ Later, Cain brought some food from the ground as a gift to God. ⁴ Abel brought the best parts from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, ⁵ but he did not accept Cain and his gift. So Cain became very angry and felt rejected.

⁶ The Lord asked Cain, “Why are you angry? Why do you look so unhappy? ⁷ If you do things well, I will accept you, but if you do not do them well, sin is ready to attack you. Sin wants you, but you must rule over it.”

⁸ Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out into the field.” While they were out in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

⁹ Later, the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

Cain answered, “I don’t know. Is it my job to take care of my brother?”

¹⁰ Then the Lord said, “What have you done? Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground. ¹¹ And now you will be cursed in your work with the ground, the same ground where your brother’s blood fell and where your hands killed him. ¹² You will work the ground, but it will not grow good crops for you anymore, and you will wander around on the earth.”

¹³ Then Cain said to the Lord, “This punishment is more than I can stand! ¹⁴ Today you have forced me to stop working the ground, and now I must hide from you. I must wander around on the earth, and anyone who meets me can kill me.”

¹⁵ The Lord said to Cain, “No! If anyone kills you, I will punish that person seven times more.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain warning anyone who met him not to kill him.

Cain’s Family

¹⁶ So Cain went away from the Lord and lived in the land of Nod,^[e] east of Eden. ¹⁷ He had sexual relations with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. At that time Cain was building a city, which he named after his son Enoch. ¹⁸ Enoch had a son named Irad, Irad had a son named Mehujael, Mehujael had a son named Methushael, and Methushael had a son named Lamech.

¹⁹ Lamech married two women, Adah and Zillah. ²⁰ Adah gave birth to Jabal, who became the first person to live in tents and raise cattle. ²¹ Jabal’s brother was Jubal, the first person to play the harp and flute. ²² Zillah gave birth to Tubal-Cain, who made tools out of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah.

²³ Lamech said to his wives:

Adam and Eve Have a New Son

²⁵ Adam had sexual relations with his wife Eve again, and she gave birth to a son. She named him Seth^[f] and said, “God has given me another child. He will take the place of Abel, who was killed by Cain.” ²⁶ Seth also had a son, and they named him Enosh. At that time people began to pray to the Lord.

Adam’s Family History

5 This is the family history of Adam. When God created human beings, he made them in his own likeness. ² He created them male and female, and on that day he blessed them and named them human beings.

³ When Adam was 130 years old, he became the father of another son in his likeness and image, and Adam named him Seth. ⁴ After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. ⁵ So Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.

⁶ When Seth was 105 years old, he had a son named Enosh. ⁷ After Enosh was born, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. ⁸ So Seth lived a total of 912 years, and then he died.

⁹ When Enosh was 90 years old, he had a son named Kenan. ¹⁰ After Kenan was born, Enosh lived 815 years and had other sons and daughters. ¹¹ So Enosh lived a total of 905 years, and then he died.

¹² When Kenan was 70 years old, he had a son named Mahalalel. ¹³ After Mahalalel was born, Kenan lived 840 years and had other sons and daughters. ¹⁴ So Kenan lived a total of 910 years, and then he died.

¹⁵ When Mahalalel was 65 years old, he had a son named Jared. ¹⁶ After Jared was born, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons and daughters. ¹⁷ So Mahalalel lived a total of 895 years, and then he died.

¹⁸ When Jared was 162 years old, he had a son named Enoch. ¹⁹ After Enoch was born, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. ²⁰ So Jared lived a total of 962 years, and then he died.

²¹ When Enoch was 65 years old, he had a son named Methuselah. ²² After Methuselah was born, Enoch walked with God 300 years more and had other sons and daughters. ²³ So Enoch lived a total of 365 years. ²⁴ Enoch walked with God; one day Enoch could not be found, because God took him.

²⁵ When Methuselah was 187 years old, he had a son named Lamech. ²⁶ After Lamech was born, Methuselah lived 782 years and had other sons and daughters. ²⁷ So Methuselah lived a total of 969 years, and then he died.

²⁸ When Lamech was 182, he had a son. ²⁹ Lamech named his son Noah^[g] and said, “He will comfort us in our work, which comes from the ground the Lord has cursed.” ³⁰ After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. ³¹ So Lamech lived a total of 777 years, and then he died.

³² After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

The Human Race Becomes Evil

6 The number of people on earth began to grow, and daughters were born to them. ² When the sons of God saw that these girls were beautiful, they married any of them they chose. ³ The Lord said, “My Spirit will not remain in human beings forever, because they are flesh. They will live only 120 years.”

⁴ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also later. That was when the sons of God had sexual relations with the daughters of human beings. These women gave birth to children, who became famous and were the mighty warriors of long ago.

⁵ The Lord saw that the human beings on the earth were very wicked and that everything they thought about was evil. ⁶ He was sorry he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. ⁷ So the Lord said, “I will destroy all human beings that I made on the earth. And I will destroy every animal and everything that crawls on the earth and the birds of the air, because I am sorry I have made them.” ⁸ But Noah pleased the Lord.

Noah and the Great Flood

⁹ This is the family history of Noah. Noah was a good man, the most innocent man of his time, and he walked with God. ¹⁰ He had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

¹¹ People on earth did what God said was evil, and violence was everywhere. ¹² When God saw that everyone on the earth did only evil, ¹³ he said to Noah, “Because people have made the earth full of violence, I will destroy all of them from the earth. ¹⁴ Build a boat of cypress wood for yourself. Make rooms in it and cover it inside and outside with tar. ¹⁵ This is how big I want you to build the boat: four hundred fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high. ¹⁶ Make an opening around the top of the boat that is eighteen inches high from the edge of the roof down. Put a door in the side of the boat. Make an upper, middle, and lower deck in it. ¹⁷ I will bring a flood of water on the earth to destroy all living things that live under the sky, including everything that has the breath of life. Everything on the earth will die. ¹⁸ But I will make an agreement with you—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives will all go into the boat. ¹⁹ Also, you must bring into the boat two of every living thing, male and female. Keep them alive with you. ²⁰ Two of every kind of bird, animal, and crawling thing will come to you to be kept alive. ²¹ Also gather some of every kind of food and store it on the boat as food for you and the animals.”

²² Noah did everything that God commanded him.

The Flood Begins

7 Then the Lord said to Noah, “I have seen that you are the best person among the people of this time, so you and your family can go into the boat. ² Take with you seven pairs, each male with its female, of every kind of clean animal, and take one pair, each male with its female, of every kind of unclean animal. ³ Take seven pairs of all the birds of the sky, each male with its female. This will allow all these animals to continue living on the earth after the flood. ⁴ Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth. It will rain forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe off from the earth every living thing that I have made.”

⁵ Noah did everything the Lord commanded him.

⁶ Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came. ⁷ He and his wife and his sons and their wives went into the boat to escape the waters of the flood. ⁸ The clean animals, the unclean animals, the birds, and everything that crawls on the ground ⁹ came to Noah. They went into the boat in groups of two, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. ¹⁰ Seven days later the flood started.

¹¹ When Noah was six hundred years old, the flood started. On the seventeenth day of the second month of that year the underground springs split open, and the clouds in the sky poured out rain. ¹² The rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights.

¹³ On that same day Noah and his wife, his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives went into the boat. ¹⁴ They had every kind of wild and tame animal, every kind of animal that crawls on the earth, and every kind of bird. ¹⁵ Every creature that had the breath of life came to Noah in the boat in groups of two. ¹⁶ One male and one female of every living thing came, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord closed the door behind them.

¹⁷ Water flooded the earth for forty days, and as it rose it lifted the boat off the ground. ¹⁸ The water continued to rise, and the boat floated on it above the earth. ¹⁹ The water rose so much that even the highest mountains under the sky were covered by it. ²⁰ It continued to rise until it was more than twenty feet above the mountains.

²¹ All living things that moved on the earth died. This included all the birds, tame animals, wild animals, and creatures that swarm on the earth, as well as all human beings. ²² So everything on dry land that had the breath of life in it died. ²³ God destroyed from the earth every living thing that was on the land—every man, animal, crawling thing, and bird of the sky. All that was left was Noah and what was with him in the boat. ²⁴ And the waters continued to cover the earth for one hundred fifty days.

The Flood Ends

8 But God remembered Noah and all the wild and tame animals with him in the boat. He made a wind blow over the earth, and the water went down. ² The underground springs stopped flowing, and the clouds in the sky stopped pouring down rain. ^3-4 The water that covered the earth began to go down. After one hundred fifty days it had gone down so much that the boat touched land again. It came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat^[h] on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. ⁵ The water continued to go down so that by the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains could be seen.

⁶ Forty days later Noah opened the window he had made in the boat, and ⁷ he sent out a raven. It flew here and there until the water had dried up from the earth. ⁸ Then Noah sent out a dove to find out if the water had dried up from the ground. ⁹ The dove could not find a place to land because water still covered the earth, so it came back to the boat. Noah reached out his hand and took the bird and brought it back into the boat.

¹⁰ After seven days Noah again sent out the dove from the boat, ¹¹ and that evening it came back to him with a fresh olive leaf in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the ground was almost dry. ¹² Seven days later he sent the dove out again, but this time it did not come back.

¹³ When Noah was six hundred and one years old, in the first day of the first month of that year, the water was dried up from the land. Noah removed the covering of the boat and saw that the land was dry. ¹⁴ By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was completely dry.

¹⁵ Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶ “You and your wife, your sons, and their wives should go out of the boat. ¹⁷ Bring every animal out of the boat with you—the birds, animals, and everything that crawls on the earth. Let them have many young ones so that they might grow in number.”

¹⁸ So Noah went out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹ Every animal, everything that crawls on the earth, and every bird went out of the boat by families.

²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of all the clean birds and animals, and he burned them on the altar as offerings to God. ²¹ The Lord was pleased with these sacrifices and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of human beings. Their thoughts are evil even when they are young, but I will never again destroy every living thing on the earth as I did this time.

The New Beginning

9 Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Have many children; grow in number and fill the earth. ² Every animal on earth, every bird in the sky, every animal that crawls on the ground, and every fish in the sea will respect and fear you. I have given them to you.

³ “Everything that moves, everything that is alive, is yours for food. Earlier I gave you the green plants, but now I give you everything for food. ⁴ But you must not eat meat that still has blood in it, because blood gives life. ⁵ I will demand blood for life. I will demand the life of any animal that kills a person, and I will demand the life of anyone who takes another person’s life.

⁷ “As for you, Noah, I want you and your family to have many children, to grow in number on the earth, and to become many.”

⁸ Then God said to Noah and his sons, ⁹ “Now I am making my agreement with you and your people who will live after you, ¹⁰ and with every living thing that is with you—the birds, the tame and the wild animals, and with everything that came out of the boat with you—with every living thing on earth. ¹¹ I make this agreement with you: I will never again destroy all living things by a flood. A flood will never again destroy the earth.”

¹² And God said, “This is the sign of the agreement between me and you and every living creature that is with you. ¹³ I am putting my rainbow in the clouds as the sign of the agreement between me and the earth. ¹⁴ When I bring clouds over the earth and a rainbow appears in them, ¹⁵ I will remember my agreement between me and you and every living thing. Floods will never again destroy all life on the earth. ¹⁶ When the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and I will remember the agreement that continues forever between me and every living thing on the earth.”

¹⁷ So God said to Noah, “The rainbow is a sign of the agreement that I made with all living things on earth.”

Noah and His Sons

¹⁸ The sons of Noah who came out of the boat with him were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) ¹⁹ These three men were Noah’s sons, and all the people on earth came from these three sons.

²⁰ Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard. ²¹ When he drank wine made from his grapes, he became drunk and lay naked in his tent. ²² Ham, the father of Canaan, looked at his naked father and told his brothers outside. ²³ Then Shem and Japheth got a coat and, carrying it on both their shoulders, they walked backwards into the tent and covered their father. They turned their faces away so that they did not see their father’s nakedness.

²⁴ Noah was sleeping because of the wine. When he woke up and learned what his youngest son, Ham, had done to him, ²⁵ he said,

²⁶ Noah also said,

²⁸ After the flood Noah lived 350 years. ²⁹ He lived a total of 950 years, and then he died.

Nations Grow and Spread

10 This is the family history of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah. After the flood these three men had sons.

Japheth’s Sons

² The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.

³ The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.

⁴ The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim,^[i] and Rodanim. ⁵ Those who lived in the lands around the Mediterranean Sea came from these sons of Japheth. All the families grew and became different nations, each nation with its own land and its own language.

Ham’s Sons

⁶ The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim,^[j] Put, and Canaan.

⁷ The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca.

The sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan.

⁸ Cush also had a descendant named Nimrod, who became a very powerful man on earth. ⁹ He was a great hunter before the Lord, which is why people say someone is “like Nimrod, a great hunter before the Lord.” ¹⁰ At first Nimrod’s kingdom covered Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh in the land of Babylonia. ¹¹ From there he went to Assyria, where he built the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, and Calah. ¹² He also built Resen, the great city between Nineveh and Calah.

¹³ Mizraim was the father of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, ¹⁴ Pathrusites, Casluhites, and the people of Crete. (The Philistines came from the Casluhites.)

¹⁵ Canaan was the father of Sidon, his first son, and of Heth. ¹⁶ He was also the father of the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, ¹⁷ Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, ¹⁸ Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites. The families of the Canaanites scattered. ¹⁹ Their land reached from Sidon to Gerar as far as Gaza, and then to Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.

²⁰ All these people were the sons of Ham, and all these families had their own languages, their own lands, and their own nations.

Shem’s Sons

²¹ Shem, Japheth’s older brother, also had sons. One of his descendants was the father of all the sons of Eber.

²² The sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.

²³ The sons of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshech.

²⁴ Arphaxad was the father of Shelah, who was the father of Eber. ²⁵ Eber was the father of two sons—one named Peleg,^[k] because the earth was divided during his life, and the other was named Joktan.

²⁶ Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, ²⁷ Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, ²⁸ Obal, Abimael, Sheba, ²⁹ Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these people were the sons of Joktan. ³⁰ They lived in the area between Mesha and Sephar in the hill country in the East.

³¹ These are the people from the family of Shem, arranged by families, languages, countries, and nations.

³² This is the list of the families from the sons of Noah, arranged according to their nations. From these families came all the nations who spread across the earth after the flood.

The Languages Confused

11 At this time the whole world spoke one language, and everyone used the same words. ² As people moved from the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there.

³ They said to each other, “Let’s make bricks and bake them to make them hard.” So they used bricks instead of stones, and tar instead of mortar. ⁴ Then they said to each other, “Let’s build a city and a tower for ourselves, whose top will reach high into the sky. We will become famous. Then we will not be scattered over all the earth.”

⁵ The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people had built. ⁶ The Lord said, “Now, these people are united, all speaking the same language. This is only the beginning of what they will do. They will be able to do anything they want. ⁷ Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not be able to understand each other.”

⁸ So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ The place is called Babel^[l] since that is where the Lord confused the language of the whole world. So the Lord caused them to spread out from there over the whole world.

The Story of Shem’s Family

¹⁰ This is the family history of Shem. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, his son Arphaxad was born. ¹¹ After that, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹² When Arphaxad was 35 years old, his son Shelah was born. ¹³ After that, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁴ When Shelah was 30 years old, his son Eber was born. ¹⁵ After that, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁶ When Eber was 34 years old, his son Peleg was born. ¹⁷ After that, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁸ When Peleg was 30 years old, his son Reu was born. ¹⁹ After that, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁰ When Reu was 32 years old, his son Serug was born. ²¹ After that, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

²² When Serug was 30 years old, his son Nahor was born. ²³ After that, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁴ When Nahor was 29 years old, his son Terah was born. ²⁵ After that, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁶ After Terah was 70 years old, his sons Abram, Nahor, and Haran were born.

The Story of Terah’s Family

²⁷ This is the family history of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran was the father of Lot. ²⁸ While his father, Terah, was still alive, Haran died in Ur in Babylonia, where he was born. ²⁹ Abram and Nahor both married. Abram’s wife was named Sarai, and Nahor’s wife was named Milcah. She was the daughter of Haran, who was the father of both Milcah and Iscah. ³⁰ Sarai was not able to have children.

³¹ Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (Haran’s son), and his daughter-in-law Sarai (Abram’s wife) and moved out of Ur of Babylonia. They had planned to go to the land of Canaan, but when they reached the city of Haran, they settled there.

³² Terah lived to be 205 years old, and then he died in Haran.

God Calls Abram

12 The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land I will show you.

⁴ So Abram left Haran as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. At this time Abram was 75 years old. ⁵ He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and everything they owned, as well as all the servants they had gotten in Haran. They set out from Haran, planning to go to the land of Canaan, and in time they arrived there.

⁶ Abram traveled through that land as far as the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. The Canaanites were living in the land at that time. ⁷ The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” So Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. ⁸ Then he traveled from Shechem to the mountain east of Bethel and set up his tent there. Bethel was to the west, and Ai was to the east. There Abram built another altar to the Lord and worshiped him. ⁹ After this, he traveled on toward southern Canaan.

Abram Goes to Egypt

¹⁰ At this time there was not much food in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt to live because there was so little food. ¹¹ Just before they arrived in Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know you are a very beautiful woman. ¹² When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This woman is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but let you live. ¹³ Tell them you are my sister so that things will go well with me and I may be allowed to live because of you.”

¹⁴ When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was very beautiful. ¹⁵ The Egyptian officers saw her and told the king of Egypt how beautiful she was. They took her to the king’s palace, and ¹⁶ the king was kind to Abram because he thought Abram was her brother. He gave Abram sheep, cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

¹⁷ But the Lord sent terrible diseases on the king and all the people in his house because of Abram’s wife Sarai. ¹⁸ So the king sent for Abram and said, “What have you done to me? Why didn’t you tell me Sarai was your wife? ¹⁹ Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’ so that I made her my wife? Now, here is your wife. Take her and leave!” ²⁰ Then the king commanded his men to make Abram leave Egypt; so Abram and his wife left with everything they owned.

Abram and Lot Separate

13 So Abram, his wife, and Lot left Egypt, taking everything they owned, and traveled to southern Canaan. ² Abram was very rich in cattle, silver, and gold.

³ He left southern Canaan and went back to Bethel where he had camped before, between Bethel and Ai, ⁴ and where he had built an altar. So he worshiped the Lord there.

⁵ During this time Lot was traveling with Abram, and Lot also had flocks, herds, and tents. ⁶ Abram and Lot had so many animals that the land could not support both of them together, ⁷ so Abram’s herdsmen and Lot’s herdsmen began to argue. The Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land at this time.

⁸ Abram said to Lot, “There should be no arguing between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, because we are brothers. ⁹ We should separate. The whole land is there in front of you. If you go to the left, I will go to the right. If you go to the right, I will go to the left.”

¹⁰ Lot looked all around and saw the whole Jordan Valley and that there was much water there. It was like the Lord’s garden, like the land of Egypt in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) ¹¹ So Lot chose to move east and live in the Jordan Valley. In this way Abram and Lot separated. ¹² Abram lived in the land of Canaan, but Lot lived among the cities in the Jordan Valley, very near to Sodom. ¹³ Now the people of Sodom were very evil and were always sinning against the Lord.

¹⁴ After Lot left, the Lord said to Abram, “Look all around you—to the north and south and east and west. ¹⁵ All this land that you see I will give to you and your descendants forever. ¹⁶ I will make your descendants as many as the dust of the earth. If anyone could count the dust on the earth, he could count your people. ¹⁷ Get up! Walk through all this land because I am now giving it to you.”

¹⁸ So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at the city of Hebron. There he built an altar to the Lord.

Lot Is Captured

14 Now Amraphel was king of Babylonia, Arioch was king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer was king of Elam, and Tidal was king of Goiim. ² All these kings went to war against several other kings: Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela. (Bela is also called Zoar.)

³ These kings who were attacked united their armies in the Valley of Siddim (now the Dead Sea). ⁴ They had served Kedorlaomer for twelve years, but in the thirteenth year, they all turned against him. ⁵ Then in the fourteenth year, Kedorlaomer and the kings with him came and defeated the Rephaites in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzites in Ham, and the Emites in Shaveh Kiriathaim. ⁶ They also defeated the Horites in the mountains of Edom to El Paran (near the desert). ⁷ Then they turned back and went to En Mishpat (that is, Kadesh). They defeated all the Amalekites, as well as the Amorites who lived in Hazazon Tamar.

⁸ At that time the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela went out to fight in the Valley of Siddim. (Bela is called Zoar.) ⁹ They fought against Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goiim, Amraphel king of Babylonia, and Arioch king of Ellasar—four kings fighting against five. ¹⁰ There were many tar pits in the Valley of Siddim. When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and their armies ran away, some of the soldiers fell into the tar pits, but the others ran away to the mountains.

¹¹ Now Kedorlaomer and his armies took everything the people of Sodom and Gomorrah owned, including their food. ¹² They took Lot, Abram’s nephew who was living in Sodom, and everything he owned. Then they left. ¹³ One of the men who was not captured went to Abram, the Hebrew, and told him what had happened. At that time Abram was camped near the great trees of Mamre the Amorite. Mamre was a brother of Eshcol and Aner, and they had all made an agreement to help Abram.

Abram Rescues Lot

¹⁴ When Abram learned that Lot had been captured, he called out his 318 trained men who had been born in his camp. He led the men and chased the enemy all the way to the town of Dan. ¹⁵ That night he divided his men into groups, and they made a surprise attack against the enemy. They chased them all the way to Hobah, north of Damascus. ¹⁶ Then Abram brought back everything the enemy had stolen, the women and the other people, and Lot, and everything Lot owned.

¹⁷ After defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, Abram went home. As he was returning, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (now called King’s Valley).

¹⁸ Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was a priest for God Most High ¹⁹ and blessed Abram, saying,

Then Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of everything he had brought back from the battle.

²¹ The king of Sodom said to Abram, “You may keep all these things for yourself. Just give me my people who were captured.”

²² But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I make a promise to the Lord, the God Most High, who made heaven and earth. ²³ I promise that I will not keep anything that is yours. I will not keep even a thread or a sandal strap so that you cannot say, ‘I made Abram rich.’ ²⁴ I will keep nothing but the food my young men have eaten. But give Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre their share of what we won, because they went with me into battle.”

God’s Agreement with Abram

15 After these things happened, the Lord spoke his word to Abram in a vision: “Abram, don’t be afraid. I will defend you, and I will give you a great reward.”

² But Abram said, “Lord God, what can you give me? I have no son, so my slave Eliezer from Damascus will get everything I own after I die.” ³ Abram said, “Look, you have given me no son, so a slave born in my house will inherit everything I have.”

⁴ Then the Lord spoke his word to Abram: “He will not be the one to inherit what you have. You will have a son of your own who will inherit what you have.”

⁵ Then God led Abram outside and said, “Look at the sky. There are so many stars you cannot count them. Your descendants also will be too many to count.”

⁶ Abram believed the Lord. And the Lord accepted Abram’s faith, and that faith made him right with God.

⁷ God said to Abram, “I am the Lord who led you out of Ur of Babylonia so that I could give you this land to own.”

⁸ But Abram said, “Lord God, how can I be sure that I will own this land?”

⁹ The Lord said to Abram, “Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old goat, a three-year-old male sheep, a dove, and a young pigeon.”

¹⁰ Abram brought them all to God. Then Abram killed the animals and cut each of them into two pieces, laying each half opposite the other half. But he did not cut the birds in half. ¹¹ Later, large birds flew down to eat the animals, but Abram chased them away.

¹² As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep. While he was asleep, a very terrible darkness came. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers and travel in a land they don’t own. The people there will make them slaves and be cruel to them for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation where they are slaves. Then your descendants will leave that land, taking great wealth with them. ¹⁵ And you, Abram, will die in peace and will be buried at an old age. ¹⁶ After your great-great-grandchildren are born, your people will come to this land again. It will take that long, because I am not yet going to punish the Amorites for their evil behavior.”

¹⁷ After the sun went down, it was very dark. Suddenly a smoking firepot and a blazing torch passed between the halves of the dead animals.^{[m] 18} So on that day the Lord made an agreement with Abram and said, “I will give to your descendants the land between the river of Egypt and the great river Euphrates. ¹⁹ This is the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, ²⁰ Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, ²¹ Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

Ishmael Is Born

16 Sarai, Abram’s wife, had no children, but she had a slave girl from Egypt named Hagar. ² Sarai said to Abram, “Look, the Lord has not allowed me to have children, so have sexual relations with my slave girl. If she has a child, maybe I can have my own family through her.”

Abram did what Sarai said. ³ It was after he had lived ten years in Canaan that Sarai gave Hagar to her husband Abram. (Hagar was her slave girl from Egypt.)

⁴ Abram had sexual relations with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When Hagar learned she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress Sarai badly. ⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, “This is your fault. I gave my slave girl to you, and when she became pregnant, she began to treat me badly. Let the Lord decide who is right—you or me.”

⁶ But Abram said to Sarai, “You are Hagar’s mistress. Do anything you want to her.” Then Sarai was hard on Hagar, and Hagar ran away.

⁷ The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the desert, by the road to Shur. ⁸ The angel said, “Hagar, Sarai’s slave girl, where have you come from? Where are you going?”

Hagar answered, “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.”

⁹ The angel of the Lord said to her, “Go home to your mistress and obey her.” ¹⁰ The angel also said, “I will give you so many descendants they cannot be counted.”

¹¹ The angel added,

¹³ The slave girl gave a name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are ‘God who sees me,’” because she said to herself, “Have I really seen God who sees me?” ¹⁴ So the well there, between Kadesh and Bered, was called Beer Lahai Roi.^[o]

¹⁵ Hagar gave birth to a son for Abram, and Abram named him Ishmael. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.