Chapter 1

Chapter 1

1 At the beginning, The All-Powerful One created the sky and the land.

2 And the land was a trackless, empty wasteland; and darkness was over the face of the roaring ocean abyss. But the Breath of The All-Powerful was brooding over the surface of the waters.

3 Then The All-Powerful One commanded, “Let light exist,” and light existed.

4 And The All-Powerful One saw that the light was functional and good, and He separated the light from the darkness.

5 The All-Powerful One named the light ‘Day,’ and the darkness He named ‘Night.’

And there was evening, and there was morning: Day One.

6 Then The All-Powerful One commanded, “Let a vast, stretched-out expanse exist in the middle of the waters, and let it divide waters from waters.”

7 And The All-Powerful One drove open the expanse, separating the waters beneath the expanse from the waters above the expanse; and it was so.

8 The All-Powerful One named the stretched-out expanse ‘Sky.’

And there was evening, and there was morning: A Second Day.

9 Then The All-Powerful One commanded, “Let the waters beneath the sky be bound and gathered into one place, and let the dry, solid ground appear;” and it was so.

10 The All-Powerful One named the dry ground ‘Land,’ and the gathered waters He named ‘Seas.’ And The All-Powerful One saw that it was functional and good.

11 Then The All-Powerful One commanded, “Let the land burst forth with vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the land bearing fruit containing its own seed, each according to its own kind;” and it was so.

12 The land produced vegetation: plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit containing its own seed, each according to its own kind. And The All-Powerful One saw that it was functional and good.

13 And there was evening, and there was morning: A Third Day.

14 Then The All-Powerful One commanded, “Let luminaries exist in the expanse of the sky to divide the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark the festivals, the days, and the changing cycles of years.

15 And let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to shed light upon the land;” and it was so.

16 The All-Powerful One fashioned the two great luminaries: the greater luminary to govern the day, and the lesser luminary to govern the night; He set the stars in motion as well.

17 The All-Powerful One placed them within the vast, stretched-out expanse of the sky to pour light upon the land,

18 to govern the day and the night, and to divide the light from the enclosing darkness. And The All-Powerful One saw that it was functional and good.

19 And there was evening, and there was morning: A Fourth Day.

20 Then The All-Powerful One commanded, “Let the waters teem and swarm with an abundance of living creatures, and let winged creatures fly above the land across the open expanse of the sky.”

21 And The All-Powerful One created the massive sea monsters and every living, moving creature that swarms through the waters, each according to its own kind, and every winged creature according to its own kind. And The All-Powerful One saw that it was functional and good.

22 Then The All-Powerful One endowed them with the power of life, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the waters of the seas, and let the winged creatures multiply upon the land.”

23 And there was evening, and there was morning: A Fifth Day.

24 Then The All-Powerful One commanded, “Let the land bring forth living creatures, each according to its own kind: the great livestock, the low-creeping things, and the wild beasts of the land, each according to its own kind;” and it was so.

25 The All-Powerful One fashioned the wild beasts of the land according to their kind, the livestock according to their kind, and everything that creeps along the ground according to its kind. And The All-Powerful One saw that it was functional and good.

26 Then The All-Powerful One said, “Let Us fashion humanity as Our living monument, to act as Our reflection; and let them actively manage the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the skies, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

27 So The All-Powerful One carved out humanity as His own living monument; as the living monument of The All-Powerful One He carved them out; male and female He carved them out.

28 Then The All-Powerful One endowed them with the power of life, and The All-Powerful One said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the land and tame its wildness. Actively manage the fish of the sea, the winged creatures of the sky, and every living creature that moves upon the ground.”

29 And The All-Powerful One said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire land, and every tree whose fruit contains seed; they shall be your functional food supply.

30 And to every wild beast of the land, to every winged creature of the sky, and to everything that creeps upon the ground—everything that contains an active life-soul —I have given every green plant for food;” and it was so.

31 Then The All-Powerful One evaluated everything that He had set in motion, and Look, it was extraordinarily functional and exceptionally good. And there was evening, and there was morning: The Sixth Day.