In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and barren, and darkness covered the abyss while the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.
You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am wonderfully made; awesome are your works, as I know very well.
Ever since the creation of the world the invisible attributes of God’s eternal power and divine nature have been clearly understood and perceived through the things he has made. Therefore, the conduct of these people is inexcusable.
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the eternal God, the Creator of the earth’s farthest boundaries. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding cannot be scrutinized.
He has made everything suitable for its time, and he has given men a sense of past and future, but they never have the slightest comprehension of what God has wrought from beginning to end.
And God said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the wild animals and reptiles that crawl upon the earth.”
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.”
Woe to anyone who rises up against his Maker, or to the pot that is displeased with the potter. Does the clay say to the one who molds it, “What are you doing? Your work makes no sense.”
I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you. I will remove from your body a heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh in its place.