1The creation of the heavens, the earth, and everything in them ⁵was complete.

2By the time the seventh day came, God had finished the work he'd done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work he'd been doing.

3God blessed the seventh day, and set it apart as holy, because he rested from all the work he'd done in creation.

4This is the account of the Lord God's creation when he made the heavens and the earth.

5Up to this point there were no wild plants ⁶or crops growing on the earth, because the Lord God hadn't sent rain, and there was no one to cultivate the ground.

6Dew came up from the earth and made the whole surface of the ground wet.

7The Lord God shaped the man Adam ⁷from the dust of the ground. He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living being.

8The Lord planted a garden in Eden, in the east. There he put the man Adam he had created.

9The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow in the garden, beautiful trees and trees producing fruit that's good to eat. The tree of life was in the middle of the garden, along with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10A river flowed out from Eden to water the garden. From there it split into four branches.

11The first branch was called the Pishon and it flowed through the whole land of Havilah, where gold is found.

12(The gold from that land is pure. Bdellium ⁸and onyx stone are also found there.)

13The second branch was called the Gihon and it flowed through the whole land of Cush. ⁹

14The third branch was called the Tigris ¹⁰and it flowed east of the city of Asshur. The fourth branch was called the Euphrates. ¹¹

15The Lord God put the man in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and care for it.

16The Lord God ordered Adam, “You are free to eat fruit from every tree in the garden,

17but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because the day you eat from it you are certain to die.”

18Then the Lord God said, “It's not good for Adam to be alone. I will make someone to help him, someone that's like him.”

19The Lord God used the ground to make all the wild animals, and all the birds. He took them all to Adam to see what he would call them, and Adam named every living creature.

20Adam gave names to all the livestock, all the birds, and all the wild animals. But Adam didn't find anyone like him who could help him.

21So the Lord God put Adam into a deep sleep and as he slept the Lord God removed one of Adam's ribs and closed up the place where he took it with body tissue.

22The Lord God made a woman, using the rib he'd taken from Adam, and presented her to Adam.

23“Finally!” said Adam. “Here is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.” ¹²

24This is the reason a man leaves his father and mother and is joined ¹³to his wife, and the two become one being.

25Adam and his wife Eve ¹⁴were both naked, but they weren't embarrassed about it.