The Book of Genesis
Chapter One

In the beginning thou didst create the heaven and
the earth And the earth was without
form and void

And there was darkness over the abyss
And thou saidest Let there be light And there
was light
And thou didst see that the light was good
And didst divide from it the darkness
And the light thou calledst day and the
darkness night
And it was evening And it was morning
The first day

Then didst thou make heaven And didst place
thy throne upon it
And it was evening And it was morning
The second day
And then thou madest the dry land and calledst it
earth and the gathering together of the
waters didst thou call sea
And didst say that it was good And the earth
brought forth grass and the herb yielding
seed
And the fruit tree began to bear fruit
And thou didst see that it was good And didst
make the sun and moon and stars
To be the lights by day and night

And it was morning the fourth day And thou
didst make the fish in the sea and the
fowls in the air
And the fifth day thou didst make on earth animals
and beasts great and small
And didst see that it was good And didst say
Let us make man in our image and likeness
Man who will be lord over the fish of the sea
and the fowls of the air and over cattle
and over all the earth and over all living
things which move upon the earth

And thou didst make man in thine own image
Male and female
Didst thou create them and bless them And
didst say
Be fruitful and multiply
Then didst thou look from the heights upon
all they creation
Didst look contentedly Patted thy beard
with thy left hand

Thy belly with the right And didst say
See
This is very good
And it was the sixth day

But I looked over the earth
And I saw the water eating away the earth
The sun drinking water
The earth belching out fire
I saw beast attacking beast
Man spilling man’s blood
I saw evil deeds on all sides
I saw the evil deeds which thou didst create
For I had tasted of the fruit of the tree of
knowledge
I saw for my eyes were opened
And I cried out
It is not good It is not good It is not
This thy earth
Is good only for thy stones

That was the seventh day The day of rest

Translated by Anne Pennington

The preceding text is copyright of the author and/or translator and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.