Creation

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

¹⁶ For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him.

¹⁷ He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

⁴ Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.

⁵ Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a measuring line across it?

⁶ On what were its foundations set, or who laid its cornerstone,

⁷ while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸ Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,

⁹ when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its blanket,

¹⁰ when I fixed its boundaries and set in place its bars and doors,

¹ O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens.

² From the mouths of children and infants You have ordained praise on account of Your adversaries, to silence the enemy and avenger.

³ When I behold Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place—

⁴ what is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You care for him?

⁵ You made him a little lower than the angels; You crowned him with glory and honor.

⁶ You made him ruler of the works of Your hands; You have placed everything under his feet:

⁷ all sheep and oxen, and even the beasts of the field,

³ They will prohibit marriage and require abstinence from certain foods that God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

⁴ For every creation of God is good, and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected,

⁵ because it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

²⁴ The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.

²⁵ Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

²⁶ From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands.

²⁷ God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.

²⁸ ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’

²⁹ Therefore, being offspring of God, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”

²⁷ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

And God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

²⁶ Lift up your eyes on high: Who created all these? He leads forth the starry host by number; He calls each one by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.

²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob, and why do you assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my claim is ignored by my God”?

²⁸ Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary; His understanding is beyond searching out.

⁵ This is what God the LORD says— He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the people on it and life to those who walk in it:

⁶ “I, the LORD, have called you for a righteous purpose, and I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and appoint you to be a covenant for the people and a light to the nations,

¹² The LORD made the earth by His power; He established the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.

¹³ When He thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He generates the lightning with the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

² He was with God in the beginning.

³ Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.

⁷ He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth upon nothing.

⁸ He wraps up the waters in His clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their own weight.

⁹ He covers the face of the full moon, spreading over it His cloud.

¹⁰ He has inscribed a horizon on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.

You alone are the LORD. You created the heavens, the highest heavens with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all things, and the host of heaven worships You.

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.

² Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.

³ Without speech or language, without a sound to be heard,

⁴ their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun.

⁵ Like a bridegroom emerging from his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course,

⁶ it rises at one end of the heavens and runs its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.

¹ The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein.

² For He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

⁶ By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all the stars by the breath of His mouth.

⁷ He piles up the waters of the sea; He puts the depths into storehouses.

⁸ Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people of the world revere Him.

⁹ For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm.

¹⁹ He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows when to set.

²⁰ You bring darkness, and it becomes night, when all the beasts of the forest prowl.

²¹ The young lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God.

²² The sun rises, and they withdraw; they lie down in their dens.

²³ Man goes forth to his work and to his labor until evening.

²⁴ How many are Your works, O LORD! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures.

¹³ For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴ I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well.

¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be.

² Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

⁴ And God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.

⁵ God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

⁶ And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, to separate the waters from the waters.”

⁷ So God made the expanse and separated the waters beneath it from the waters above. And it was so.

⁴ This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made them.

⁵ Now no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth, nor had any plant of the field sprouted; for the LORD God had not yet sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.

⁶ But springs welled up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.

⁷ Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

⁸ And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, where He placed the man He had formed.

⁹ Out of the ground the LORD God gave growth to every tree that is pleasing to the eye and good for food. And in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

“Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things; by Your will they exist and came to be.”

⁸ God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

⁹ And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered into one place, so that the dry land may appear.” And it was so.

¹⁰ God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of waters He called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

¹¹ Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees, each bearing fruit with seed according to its kind.” And it was so.

¹² The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

¹³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

¹⁴ And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to distinguish between the day and the night, and let them be signs to mark the seasons and days and years.

¹⁵ And let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth.” And it was so.

¹⁶ God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. And He made the stars as well.

¹⁷ God set these lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth,

¹⁸ to preside over the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

¹⁹ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

²⁰ And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.”

²¹ So God created the great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters teemed according to their kinds, and every bird of flight after its kind. And God saw that it was good.

²² Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”

²³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

²⁴ And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.

²⁵ God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that crawls upon the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

¹⁵ “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.

¹⁶ In past generations, He let all nations go their own way.

¹⁷ Yet He has not left Himself without testimony to His goodness: He gives you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.”

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

And from the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man, He made a woman and brought her to him.

He spoke of trees, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop growing in the wall, and he taught about animals, birds, reptiles, and fish.

When the believers heard this, they lifted up their voices to God with one accord. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “You made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them.

It is a sign between Me and the Israelites forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, but on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.’”

²⁹ Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed. They will be yours for food.

³⁰ And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth—everything that has the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

Then the LORD God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it.

¹⁸ Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine—since he was priest of God Most High —

¹⁹ and he blessed Abram and said: “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth,

²⁰ and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” Then Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of everything.

“O LORD of Hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.

“I am a Hebrew,” replied Jonah. “I worship the LORD, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.”

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever!”

And he said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come. Worship the One who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and the springs of waters.”

⁴⁹ ‘Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. What kind of house will you build for Me, says the Lord, or where will My place of repose be?

⁵⁰ Has not My hand made all these things?’