What is the Bible's big story?

²⁶God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

²⁷God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.

²⁸God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

²⁹God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.

³⁰To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so.

³¹God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

¹Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’”

²The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden,

³but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

⁴The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t surely die,

⁵for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

⁶When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took some of its fruit, and ate; and she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it, too.

⁷Their eyes were opened, and they both knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made coverings for themselves.

⁸They heard the voice of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden.

⁹Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”

¹⁰The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

¹¹God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

¹²The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

¹³Yahweh God said to the woman, “What have you done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

¹⁴Yahweh God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed above all livestock, and above every animal of the field. You shall go on your belly and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.

¹⁵I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”

¹⁶To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bear children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

¹⁷To Adam he said, “Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and ate from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ the ground is cursed for your sake. You will eat from it with much labor all the days of your life.

¹⁸It will yield thorns and thistles to you; and you will eat the herb of the field.

¹⁹By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

²⁰The man called his wife Eve because she would be the mother of all the living.

²¹Yahweh God made coats of animal skins for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them.

²²Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...”

²³Therefore Yahweh God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.

²⁴So he drove out the man; and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

¹³Behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia from Jerusalem.

¹⁴They talked with each other about all of these things which had happened.

¹⁵While they talked and questioned together, Jesus himself came near, and went with them.

¹⁶But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

¹⁷He said to them, “What are you talking about as you walk, and are sad?”

¹⁸One of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things which have happened there in these days?”

¹⁹He said to them, “What things?” They said to him, “The things concerning Jesus, the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people;

²⁰and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him.

²¹But we were hoping that it was he who would redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.

²²Also, certain women of our company amazed us, having arrived early at the tomb;

²³and when they didn’t find his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive.

²⁴Some of us went to the tomb, and found it just like the women had said, but they didn’t see him.”

²⁵He said to them, “Foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!

²⁶Didn’t the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?”

²⁷Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

²⁸They drew near to the village, where they were going, and he acted like he would go further.

²⁹They urged him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is almost evening, and the day is almost over.” He went in to stay with them.

³⁰When he had sat down at the table with them, he took the bread and gave thanks. Breaking it, he gave to them.

³¹Their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished out of their sight.

³²They said one to another, “Weren’t our hearts burning within us, while he spoke to us along the way, and while he opened the Scriptures to us?”

³³They rose up that very hour, returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and those who were with them,

³⁴saying, “The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!”

³⁵They related the things that happened along the way, and how he was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.

¹I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more.

²I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

³I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

⁴He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.”

⁵He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.”

⁶He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life.

⁷He who overcomes, I will give him these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son.

⁸But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers,idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”