Why did God create us?

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.

¹But now thus says Yahweh who created you, Jacob, and he who formed you, Israel: “Don’t be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine.

²When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, and flame will not scorch you.

³For I am Yahweh your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I have given Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place.

⁴Since you have been precious and honored in my sight, and I have loved you; therefore I will give people in your place, and nations instead of your life.

⁵Don’t be afraid; for I am with you. I will bring your seed from the east, and gather you from the west.

⁶I will tell the north, ‘Give them up!’ and tell the south, ‘Don’t hold them back! Bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth—

⁷everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yes, whom I have made.’”

⁸Bring out the blind people who have eyes, and the deaf who have ears.

⁹Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the peoples be assembled. Who among them can declare this, and show us former things? Let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified; or let them hear, and say, “That is true.”

¹⁰“You are my witnesses,” says Yahweh, “With my servant whom I have chosen; that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, neither will there be after me.

¹¹I myself am Yahweh; and besides me there is no savior.

¹²I have declared, I have saved, and I have shown; and there was no strange god among you. Therefore you are my witnesses”, says Yahweh, “and I am God.

¹³Yes, since the day was I am he; and there is no one who can deliver out of my hand. I will work, and who can hinder it?”

¹⁴Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “For your sake, I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring all of them down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships of their rejoicing.

¹⁵I am Yahweh, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.”

¹⁶Thus says Yahweh, who makes a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters;

¹⁷who brings out the chariot and horse, the army and the mighty man (they lie down together, they shall not rise; they are extinct, they are quenched like a wick):

¹⁸“Don’t remember the former things, and don’t consider the things of old.

¹⁹Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don’t you know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

²⁰The animals of the field shall honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; because I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen,

²¹the people which I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise.

²²Yet you have not called on me, Jacob; but you have been weary of me, Israel.

²³You have not brought me of your sheep for burnt offerings; neither have you honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, nor wearied you with frankincense.

²⁴You have bought me no sweet cane with money, nor have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices; but you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities.

²⁵I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins.

²⁶Put me in remembrance. Let us plead together. Declare your case, that you may be justified.

²⁷Your first father sinned, and your teachers have transgressed against me.

²⁸Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary; and I will make Jacob a curse, and Israel an insult.”

²²Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus, and said, “You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things.

²³For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you.

²⁴The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands,

²⁵neither is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.

²⁶He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings,

²⁷that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

²⁸‘For in him we live, and move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’

²⁹Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.

³⁰The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,

³¹because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.”

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.”