Genesis 2:4-19 (Vespers, 1st reading)
- 4
- This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
- 5
- before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;
- 6
- but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.
- 7
- And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
- 8
- The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.
- 9
- And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
- 10
- Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads.
- 11
- The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.
- 12
- And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there.
- 13
- The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush.
- 14
- The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
- 15
- Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.
- 16
- And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;
- 17
- “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
- 18
- And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
- 19
- Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.