The Book of Genesis, King James Version: a Modern Translation

¹ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

¹ Some time ago, accounts differ on this point, the Universe was created by an individual referring to himself as "God". Whether or not God was this individual's real name or an alias has yet to be determined. The creation of the Universe was certainly an impressive achievement, but as nearly the entire following story takes place on one particular terrestrial body called the Earth, it is also mentioned as being created at this time.

² And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

² God creates the Earth, and it's very dark as he as yet to create the sun. God goes for a swim in the waters of the earth.

³ And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

³ God,being unable to see what's going on, calls for a light. And a light is produced.

⁴ And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

⁴ God is quite pleased with his creation and officially calls in Light. Needing a word to describe what happens when the light isn't around, he comes up with Night.

⁵ And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

⁵ It was at this point God decided it would be best to start having names for things, as light, absence of light, and the times when there's about equal parts light and night were a bad way to keep referring to certain times of the day. So he created the words Day, Night, Evening and Morning to describe these things.

⁶ And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

⁶ And God said, "I'm tired of the icy void of space. All of my Earth water keeps gassing out into it. I think an atmosphere is called for."

⁷ And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

⁷ And so God had an atmosphere put around the earth. And this made the whole Earth thing a great deal nicer, as the sunsets and sunrises had all the clouds to make them good to look at.

⁸ And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

⁸ And God called the atmosphere, or at least the upper bits of it, Heaven. Which is a bit confusing as Heaven was also the name of the place God lived when he wasn't creating Universes, Plants, Suns, and Atmospheres. Or it was possibly where he was all the time when he wasn't swimming. Or he might not have been swimming all that long. Or at all. It is also possible this is not entirely relevant to the story.

Incidentally, all of this happened on the second day.

⁹ And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

⁹ And God said, "I am tired of doing all these things while swimming, (or when I'm not swimming), so let there be something for me to stand on. And let it be firm. And put it here in the water so I won't have to fly or teleport to get there. No floating chunks of rock, for example. Keep it simple!"

¹⁰ And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

¹⁰ Deciding a few more names were in order, God called the land Earth and the waters Seas. This is also a bit confusing as it was stated earlier, (Verse 2), that God created the Earth back when he created the rest of the universe, which is a little odd for at that time what was to be called the Earth didn't actually have any Earth, (second definition), in it, though I suppose the Earth may have just been down there under the waters. This also might not be entirely relevant to the story at hand.

¹¹ And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

¹¹ And God said, "While I like the seas and the earth, I feel the earth could use a little something more. The sea creates all those clouds that make the sunsets and sunrise so appealing, but the earth just sits there."

"I now create plant life in all its many flavors and varieties. Let the earth be covered with it, save for a few barren areas for contrast. And I shall make many of the plants edible, for reasons shortly to be explained."

¹² And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

¹² And then the entire system of the plants began to cycle, with plants making more plants until most of the Earth was covered with them. And the plants did this by using the water of the seas, (nicely recycled from salt to fresh by the Atmosphere), the Earth, (which turned out to be a fine place for growing plants), and the Light, which provided the energy necessary for the entire process to keep going. And God, justly proud about how all his previous works were coming together into a functioning whole, called it Good.

¹³ And the evening and the morning were the third day.

¹³ And that was the Third Day. And while it was not as productive in sheer scale as the day when God created the Universe, it was still a most impressive day for the Earth, because of the whole ecosystem creation thing.

¹⁴ And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

¹⁴ And God said, "Let there be lights in the sky, so as to divide day from night." Which indicates God was getting tired of creating all the light himself and wanted something else to take over the job. Its one thing to simply have a point of light gleaming steadfast and eternal in the heavens, but if one wants seasons, days, years, a solution involving orbital dynamics is called for.

¹⁵ And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

¹⁵ And God said, "Although I have already created light in the heaven to produce the whole day night thing, I'm now going to give the system an upgrade, as I was not quite pleased the first with the first result, given my desire for seasons, days, years, etc..". And it was so.

¹⁶ And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

¹⁶ And God made the Sun and the Moon. He also made the stars at this point as well. It seems that being tired of providing all the light himself he wanted a substantial body of luminous celestial objects to carry the load.

¹⁷ And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

¹⁷ And God set the Sun, Moon, and Stars in the sky. Which is very hands on for God considering up to this point he just had to speak his will and it was done. Some things you just have to do yourself.

¹⁸ And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

¹⁸ So now he set the Sun to light the day, and the Moon to light the darkness. And God, happy not to be doing his own illuminating any more, called it good.

¹⁹ And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

¹⁹ And that was the fourth day. Which was more of a reboot kind of day than a creation sort of day, as God was replacing previous systems with new ones.

²⁰ And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

²⁰ And God said, "These plants are all right, but I want more. I want creatures living in the sea and the air."

²¹ And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

²¹ And God created all the creatures of the sea, but whales in particular. Great big whales. And then he created the birds in all their multitudes. So it was a very good day for the fish, the birds and various assorted mammals that swam or flew that didn't truly belong to the fish/bird families of animal kind. Particularly the whales.

²² And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

²² And God blessed the fish, the birds and the other assorted creatures, and told them they were now very productive and that they should get to producing. Which they then did.

²³ And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

²³ And that was the fifth day. And this was a very good day for creating, given the vast diversity of living creatures on Earth. This might also be the day that God put all those dinosaur skeletons in the earth for reasons of his own.

²⁴ And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

²⁴ And God said, "Now it's time for the land dwellers! Particularly the bovines and the creepy things. I like creepy things". And it was done.

²⁵ And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

²⁵ And God then created the animals, but took particular care with the cattle and the creepy things. And he saw that his creations were good. Particularly the creepy things.

²⁶ And God 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

²⁶ And God said, "And now for the finishing touch! I shall create something that looks like me down there, a kind of degraded clone if you will, and it shall have dominion of all those fish, birds and cattle that I created earlier. But he shall have dominion over the creepy things in particular."

²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

²⁷ And so God created the man and the woman. And he made them look like him, which indicates that God is humanoid. But since God is capable of creating anything he wants to create with any biological reproductive processes, he might not have all the squishy, reproductive bits we normally associate with men and women.

²⁸ And God blessed them, and God said unto them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

²⁸ And God blessed them, and God told them, "Go have lots of babies. Fill up the earth and conquer it. If you can manage that, you can be the rulers of the earth. All the fish, the birds, and the animals will serve your needs. Note that I'm not specifically mentioning the creepy things at this point. Let's just call them Backup Plan A and leave it at that."

²⁹ And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

²⁹ And God said "Look, I've given you all these plants to eat. So eat them."

³⁰ And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

³⁰ "And to every animal, bird, and various creepy things, God gave the plants to eat. Save those living things that didn't eat plants, but instead ate other living things. But they could eat the things that ate the plants so that was all right. Also, in order to qualify for plant-eating/eating the plant-eating the participants had to be alive. This is very important. So no zombies!" And this is why no zombies shall ever roam the earth.

³¹ And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

³¹ And God looked down upon the earth, the seas, the fish, the whales, the land animals, the cattle, the creepy things, and the man and woman. And he liked what he saw. And he called it very good indeed! And that's how the sixth day ended, which was a pretty good day for the human race, all things considered.