Genesis

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Genesis is the first book of the Bible, in which the creation story is written. God created day and night, light and darkness, and heaven and hell on the first day. On the second day God created pure and salty water. During the third day, God created grass, trees and fruits. God created the stars on the fourth day. On the fifth day, God created animal that lived in the sea and flew in the sky. On the sixth day, God created animals that lived on the land, including males and female humans. God gave the humans the responsibility to protect the land. Finally, God had finished creating the things that he wanted to be on the Earth. So, the seventh day was a day of rest. Today, these seven days of creation are now known as the seven days in a week.

In the story of Garden of Eden, a man named Adam was created, and from his rib Eve was created.

They were married, and they lived together. One day the God came and told them that they could used the Tree of Life to survive, but they can not eat the fruit which grew on the other tree, the Tree of Knowledge. The God did not want them to learn good and evil. But the evil creature came to Eve in the form of a serpent and convinced Eve to eat the fruit, which grew on the Tree of Knowledge. She ate the fruit and knew what was good and evil. Then she convinced Adam to eat the fruit, and he did. The God found out that they had eaten what they were not supposed to. So, God got mad and told Adam and Eve to leave the Garden of Eden and live on their own.

Adam and Eve lived together in the wilderness. Soon, Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel. The two kids grew up but Cain became jealous of Abel, so he killed Abel.

Long after Cain and Abel, at a place called tower of Babel, all the languages were made. Then there came many people, and the place got over populated. The people were very evil, and many things that God did not like were happening. God was unhappy about this, so he decided to flood the place and kill all the people, except Noah, his family, and a male and female of all the animals on earth. God told Noah to build a big ship that could carry all the things, which God wanted to keep. After Noah made this ship, God started the rain, and all the places started to flood. It kept raining for 40 days and 40 nights. After that Noah let a dove fly out of the ship, but the first time, the dove just came back straight to the ship. The second time he let the dove fly and the dove came back with something from the dry land. The third time he let the dove fly, it didn't come back. This showed Noah that the land had dried up.

Noah's descendent, Abraham married Sarah, but Sarah was unable to have any children. So Abraham mated with Hagar, Sarah's slave, and Hagar gave birth to Ishmael. Then God sent an angel to Sarah, and the angel told Sarah that she would become pregnant and give birth to a baby boy. Sarah laughed at the angel's story, because she knew that she was too old to have a baby. But Sarah got pregnant, and she gave birth to a baby boy named Isaac. Isaac grew up and married Rebekkah. Rebekkah gave birth to twin boys and named them Esau and Jacob. Esau was the older brother who was out going, hairy, and was Isaac's favorite. Jacob was the younger brother who was an indoor boy, and was Rebekkah's favorite.

One day Esau came home from hunting and asked Jacob for something to eat. Jacob said to his brother that he would give him food if he gave him his birthrights. Esau, without thinking, agreed and ate the food. One day Rebekkah overheard Isaac telling Esau that he would bless Esau before he died. So Rebekkah told Jacob to go hunt for a sheep and to trick is father so that he would be blessed instead of Esau. Jacob did not like hunting, but he aught a sheep and made dinner for Isaac. Jacob also wore Esau's clothes and the sheep's hair to make him feel hairy because since Isaac was blind, every time Esau went to him, he would touch him to make sure that he was hairy. Jacob took the dinner to Isaac, and Isaac told Esau (which is really Jacob) to come close and let him feel his hairy body. Then, Isaac blessed acob, thinking that he was blessing Esau. Then Esau came back from hunting and found out that Jacob had tricked his father to be blessed.

Now Isaac and Esau were mad at Jacob. So, Rebekkah told Jacob to run away. So Jacob ran away to his Uncle Laban's house. Uncle Laban had two beautiful daughters, Rachael and Leah. Jacob fell in love with Rachael and he asked his Uncle if he could marry Rachael, but his Uncle told him that he needs to work for him for seven years to be married with her. So he worked for his Uncle, and after seven hard years of labor, he was to marry Rachael. But after the night of the marriage, Jacob woke up and found Leah sleeping next to him. He had been tricked by his Uncle. When he complained, Uncle Laban said that the older daughter is married first by tradition, so Jacob must work seven more years to get married to Rachael. Jacob was angry, but he loved Rachael. So, he worked for another seven years, and they got married.

Jacob's first four sons were also Leah's songs. There names were _________________ ____________. Racheal couldn't have any babies, so she asked her servant, Bilhah, to mate with Jacob, and they got two sons, ____________. Now Leah was jealous, but she was too old to have babies so she asked her servant, Zilpah, to mate with Jacob. The two sons of Jacob and Zilpah were ________. After a few years, Leah gave birth to two sons, ________ _____, and one daughter, _______. Finally, Rachael gave birth to Joseph and Benjamin. The twelve sons of Jacob are known as the Twelve Tribes.

Since Jacob loved Rachael more than Leah, he also treated Joseph and Benjamin with more care. His father loved Joseph, his first son with Rachael, so much that all of his other brothers did not like him. His brothers hated him so much that, they decided to kill him one day, but they ended up selling him into slavery. He was sold to the Egyptian Carabans. In Egypt, the chief executioner bought Joseph from the Carabans. Since Jacob was handsome, the wife of the chief executioner tried to seduce Joseph, but Joseph rejected her. But when Joseph ran away, the chief executioner's wife was able to hold on to a part of Joseph's clothes. Due to her anger for Joseph rejecting her, she told her husband that Joseph had tried to rape her. The chief executioner threw Joseph into jail. In the jail Joseph met the baker and the food taster. They dreamed a strange dream one day and asked Joseph what it meant. Joseph explained that the backer's dream meant that he would get out of jail work for the Pharaoh and the food taster's dream meant that he would get out of jail but would be killed. Joseph's interpretations really came true.

One day, the Pharaoh dreamed of seven thin cows eating a seven fat cows. On the next day, the Pharaoh dreamed of seven thin corns eating seven fat corns. The Pharaoh could not understand the meaning of his dreams. He called all his dream interpreters, but no one knew the meaning. Then the Pharaoh's baker told the Pharaoh that he had met Joseph while he was in jail, and Joseph had interpreted his dream correctly. So, the Pharaoh brought Joseph out of jail and asked what his dreams meant. Joseph interpreted the Pharaoh's dreams to mean that there would be seven years of wealth and seven years of famine. Since Joseph was smart the Pharaoh gave him the responsibility to save the people when the famine came. Joseph was successful from saving people from starvation. By coincidence, Joseph met his brothers, and he forgave them for what they had done to him. Then, Joseph called his family to move to the city. For four hundred and twenty-three years, these people, the Israelites, lived and grew in Egypt.

Afraid that the Israelites would outgrow the Egyptians, the Pharaoh ordered for the first-born male in the Israelites' families to be thrown into the Nile River. One female Israelite, Jachabed, did not want her son to die. So she put him in a bulrush and placed it in the river. The daughter of the Pharaoh found him, and she saved him, not telling her father that the baby was an Israelite. The baby was named Moses. Moses was an Israelite and knew he was one, but he grew up as an Egyptian.

One day Moses saw an Egyptian beating an Israelite. Moses got mad and killed the Egyptian. If the Pharaoh found out that Moses had helped an Israelite, he would be killed. So, Moses ran away to Zipporah. When he was walking he saw a burning bush. Then the burning bush began to talk to Moses and said that it was God. God told Moses to go back to the Egyptian city to lead the Israelites out the city, free from slavery. God gave him a magical rod. Moses and his brother Aaron went to the Pharaoh and told him that the Israelites wanted to leave the city to find a place to worship God. But the Pharaoh did not approve it because the Israelites were important to the Egyptians for slave labor. Moses showed God's power by sending ten plagues to the city. After the ten plagues, the Pharaoh allowed Moses and the Israelites to leave.

So, the Exodus, or mass movement of the Israelites out of Egypt, occurred. Right after the Israelites left, Ramses II, the Pharaoh at Moses' time, sent his army on chariots to chase and bring back the Israelites. Moses and the Israelites were already by the Red Sea. Moses used the rod and split the ocean into two, and the road came out from the ocean floor. They crossed the sea, and while the Egyptian chariots were still crossing, Moses used his rod and closed the sea, causing the Egyptian army to drown to death. Now the Israelites were free but they were having problems with food. So, God gave them manna and quails to eat.

Finally, the Israelites came to Mt. Sinai. Moses left the Israelites on the bottom of the mountain, and he went up to talk to God. After several weeks, the Israelites thought that Moses was dead. Aaron who was supposed to lead the group while Moses was away was also hopeless of his brother's return. So, he helped the Israelites build a new statue of God, and they began to worship it. They had tabernacles where they could worship.

Many weeks later, Moses came down with the Ten Commandments carved in the stone. After seeing the Ten Commandments, the Israelites again began to follow Moses' way. Exactly forty years after the Exodus, they settled in the "promised land" that God had guaranteed them.