The Seventh Day
The wide creation account narrows to one garden. Our Father plants it, puts the man in it to work and guard it, gives him freedom with one restriction, then calls his aloneness not good and builds a woman from his own side.
2 1So the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2By the seventh day our Father had completed his work, and he rested on the seventh day from everything he had made. 3And our Father blessed the seventh day, making it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creation he had done.
Adam and Eve
4This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when our Father made earth and heavens. 5No shrub of the field yet existed on the earth, no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for our Father had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to work the ground, 6but springs came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7Then our Father formed the man from dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living person. a a v7 'A living person' carries the relational dignity of humanity, made to live face to face with our Father. 8Then our Father planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and put there the man he had formed. 9From the ground our Father grew every tree lovely to see and good to eat, with the tree of life in the garden's center and the tree of knowing good and evil. 10A river flowed from Eden to water the garden; from there it divided into four rivers. 11The first is named Pishon; it flows around all the land of Havilah, where gold is found. b b v11 Havilah was a region famed for its fine gold; its exact location is no longer known. 12The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there. c c v12 Bdellium was a sweet-smelling resin, prized like a precious stone in the ancient world. 13The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. d d v13 Cush was a land to the south of Egypt, in the region sometimes called ancient Nubia. 14The third river's name is Tigris, flowing east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. 15Our Father took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to work it and guard it.
16And our Father commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for you will surely die the day you eat from it."
18Then our Father said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper matching him."
19From the ground our Father formed every field animal and every sky bird, then brought each to the man to see what he'd name it. Whatever the man named each living creature, that was its name. 20The man named all livestock, birds of the sky, and all wild animals, but for Adam no helper matching him was found. 21So our Father made the man fall into a deep sleep, and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed the flesh over it. 22Then our Father built a woman from the rib he took from the man, and brought her to the man. 23The man said, "At last! This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she will be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man." 24So a man leaves his father and mother, joins his wife, and they become one flesh. 25The man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.
