Book One
The Way of the Righteous and the Wicked
1 Blessed is the man1
who awalks not in bthe counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in cthe way of sinners,
nor dsits in ethe seat of fscoffers;
2 but his gdelight is in the law2 of the Lord,
and on his hlaw he meditates day and night.
3 He is like ia tree
planted by jstreams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its kleaf does not wither.
lIn all that he does, he prospers.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like mchaff that the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked nwill not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in othe congregation of the righteous;
6 for the Lord pknows qthe way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
The Seventh Day, God Rests
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and wall the host of them. 2 And xon the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
The Creation of Man and Woman
4 yThese are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
5 When no zbush of the field1 was yet in the land2 and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man ato work the ground, 6 and a mist3 was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of bdust from the ground and cbreathed into his dnostrils the breath of life, and ethe man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a fgarden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. gThe tree of life was in the midst of the garden, hand the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of iHavilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the jTigris, which flows east of Assyria.4 And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 The Lord God took the man kand put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lyou shall not eat, for in the day that you eat5 of it you mshall surely die.”
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; nI will make him a helper fit for6 him.” 19 oNow out of the ground the Lord God had formed7 every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and pbrought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam8 there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a qdeep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made9 into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,
“This at last is rbone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
24 tTherefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
A Genealogy of David
1 These are the sons of tIsrael: uReuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, vIssachar, Zebulun, 2 wDan, xJoseph, yBenjamin, zNaphtali, aGad, and Asher. 3 bThe sons of Judah: cEr, Onan and Shelah; these three Bath-shua the Canaanite bore to him. Now Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death. 4 His daughter-in-law dTamar also bore him Perez and Zerah. Judah had five sons in all.
5 The esons of Perez: Hezron and Hamul. 6 The sons of Zerah: Zimri, Ethan, Heman, Calcol, and Dara, five in all. 7 The son1 of Carmi: Achan, the troubler of Israel, who fbroke faith in the matter of the devoted thing; 8 and Ethan’s son was Azariah.
9 The sons of Hezron that were born to him: Jerahmeel, gRam, and hChelubai. 10 gRam fathered Amminadab, and iAmminadab fathered jNahshon, prince of the sons of Judah. 11 Nahshon fathered kSalmon,2 Salmon fathered lBoaz, 12 Boaz fathered Obed, lObed fathered Jesse. 13 mJesse fathered Eliab his firstborn, Abinadab the second, nShimea the third, 14 Nethanel the fourth, Raddai the fifth, 15 Ozem the sixth, oDavid the seventh. 16 And their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail. pThe sons of Zeruiah: Abishai, Joab, and Asahel, three. 17 qAbigail bore Amasa, and the father of Amasa was qJether the Ishmaelite.
18 rCaleb the son of Hezron fathered children by his wife Azubah, and by Jerioth; and these were her sons: Jesher, Shobab, and Ardon. 19 When Azubah died, rCaleb married sEphrath, who bore him tHur. 20 Hur fathered Uri, and Uri fathered uBezalel.
21 Afterward Hezron went in to the daughter of vMachir the father of Gilead, whom he married when he was sixty years old, and she bore him Segub. 22 And Segub fathered Jair, who had twenty-three cities in the land of Gilead. 23 wBut Geshur and Aram took from them Havvoth-jair, Kenath, and its villages, sixty towns. All these were descendants of Machir, the father of Gilead. 24 After the death of Hezron, xCaleb went in to Ephrathah,3 the wife of Hezron his father, and she bore him yAshhur, the father of Tekoa.
25 The sons of zJerahmeel, the firstborn of Hezron: Ram, his firstborn, Bunah, Oren, Ozem, and Ahijah. 26 Jerahmeel also had another wife, whose name was Atarah; she was the mother of Onam. 27 The sons of Ram, the firstborn of Jerahmeel: Maaz, Jamin, and Eker. 28 The sons of Onam: Shammai and Jada. The sons of Shammai: Nadab and Abishur. 29 The name of Abishur’s wife was Abihail, and she bore him Ahban and Molid. 30 The sons of Nadab: Seled and Appaim; and Seled died childless. 31 The son4 of Appaim: Ishi. aThe son of Ishi: Sheshan. The son of Sheshan: Ahlai. 32 The sons of Jada, Shammai’s brother: Jether and Jonathan; and Jether died childless. 33 The sons of Jonathan: Peleth and Zaza. These were the descendants of Jerahmeel. 34 Now Sheshan had no sons, only daughters, but Sheshan had an Egyptian slave whose name was Jarha. 35 So Sheshan gave his daughter in marriage to Jarha his slave, and she bore him Attai. 36 Attai fathered Nathan, and Nathan fathered bZabad. 37 bZabad fathered Ephlal, and Ephlal fathered cObed. 38 Obed fathered Jehu, and Jehu fathered Azariah. 39 Azariah fathered Helez, and Helez fathered Eleasah. 40 Eleasah fathered Sismai, and Sismai fathered Shallum. 41 Shallum fathered Jekamiah, and Jekamiah fathered dElishama.
42 The sons of eCaleb the brother of Jerahmeel: Mareshah5 his firstborn, who fathered Ziph. The son6 of Mareshah: fHebron.7 43 The sons of Hebron: Korah, Tappuah, Rekem and Shema. 44 Shema fathered Raham, the father of Jorkeam; and Rekem fathered Shammai. 45 The son of Shammai: Maon; and Maon fathered Beth-zur. 46 Ephah also, Caleb’s concubine, bore Haran, Moza, and Gazez; and Haran fathered Gazez. 47 The sons of Jahdai: Regem, Jotham, Geshan, Pelet, Ephah, and Shaaph. 48 Maacah, Caleb’s concubine, bore Sheber and Tirhanah. 49 She also bore Shaaph the father of Madmannah, Sheva the father of Machbenah and the father of Gibea; and the gdaughter of Caleb was Achsah. 50 These were the descendants of Caleb.
The sons8 of Hur the firstborn of hEphrathah: Shobal the father of Kiriath-jearim, 51 iSalma, the father of Bethlehem, and Hareph the father of Beth-gader. 52 Shobal the father of Kiriath-jearim had other sons: jHaroeh, half of the Menuhoth. 53 And the clans of Kiriath-jearim: the Ithrites, the Puthites, the Shumathites, and the Mishraites; from these came the kZorathites and the Eshtaolites. 54 The sons of Salma: Bethlehem, the Netophathites, Atroth-beth-joab and half of the Manahathites, the Zorites. 55 The clans also of the scribes who lived at Jabez: the Tirathites, the Shimeathites and the Sucathites. These are the lKenites who came from Hammath, the father of mthe house of Rechab.
Birth of Jesus Foretold
26 In the sixth month the angel xGabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named yNazareth, 27 zto a virgin betrothed1 to a man whose name was Joseph, aof the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, bO favored one, cthe Lord is with you!”2 29 But dshe was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for eyou have found favor with God. 31 And behold, fyou will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and gyou shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of hthe Most High. And the Lord God iwill give to him the throne of jhis father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob kforever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”3
35 And the angel answered her, l“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of hthe Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born4 will be called mholy—nthe Son of God. 36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her owho was called barren. 37 For pnothing will be impossible with God.” 38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant5 of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And qthe angel departed from her.
Mary Visits Elizabeth
39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into rthe hill country, to a town in Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth swas filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, t“Blessed are you among women, and ublessed is vthe fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of wmy Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And xblessed is she who believed that there would be6 a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
Mary’s Song of Praise: The Magnificat
46 And Mary said,
y“My zsoul amagnifies the Lord,
47 band my zspirit rejoices in cGod my Savior,
48 for dhe has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations ewill call me blessed;
49 for fhe who is mighty ghas done great things for me,
and hholy is his name.
50 And ihis mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 jHe has shown strength with his arm;
khe has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
52 jhe has brought down the mighty from their thrones
land exalted those of humble estate;
53 he has filled mthe hungry with good things,
and the rich nhe has sent away empty.
54 He has ohelped phis servant Israel,
qin remembrance of his mercy,
55 ras he spoke to our fathers,
qto Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
56 And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.
