The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female.

Genesis 1:26-27 (HCSB)

Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7 (HCSB)

Adam knew his wife Eve intimately, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. She said, "I have had a male child with the Lord’s help."

Genesis 4:1 (HCSB)

He created them male and female. When they were created, He blessed them and called them man.

Genesis 5:2 (HCSB)

Whoever sheds man’s blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in His image.

Genesis 9:6 (HCSB)

Do not murder.

Exodus 20:13 (HCSB)

When men get in a fight, and hit a pregnant woman so that her children are born [prematurely], but there is no injury, the one who hit her must be fined as the woman’s husband demands from him, and he must pay according to judicial assessment. If there is an injury, then you must give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for wound.

Exodus 21:22-25 (HCSB)

Stay far away from a false accusation. Do not kill the innocent and the just, because I will not justify the guilty.

Exodus 23:7 (HCSB)

I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live

Deuteronomy 30:19 (HCSB)

¹Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king; he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the Lord’s sight like his forefather David, ²for he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and made cast images of the Baals. ³He burned incense in the Valley of Hinnom and burned his children in the fire, imitating the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites. ⁴He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.

2 Chronicles 28:1-4 (HCSB)

⁸Your hands shaped me and formed me. Will You now turn around and destroy me? ⁹Please remember that You formed me like clay. Will You now return me to dust? ¹⁰Did You not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? ¹¹You clothed me with skin and flesh, and wove me together with bones and tendons. ¹²You gave me life and faithful love, and Your care has guarded my life.

Job 10:8-12 (HCSB)

¹⁵Did not the One who made me in the womb also make them? Did not the same God form us both in the womb?

Job 31:15 (HCSB)

⁴The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

Job 33:4 (HCSB)

⁹You took me from the womb, making me secure while at my mother’s breast. ¹⁰I was given over to You at birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb.

Psalm 22:9-10 (HCSB)

⁵Indeed, I was guilty [when I]* The bracketed text has been added for clarity. was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me. p(notes).The bracketed text has been added for clarity.

Psalm 51:5 (HCSB)

³Acknowledge that the Lord is God. He made us, and we are His — His people, the sheep of His pasture.

Psalm 100:3 (HCSB)

³⁷They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons. ³⁸They shed innocent blood—the blood of their sons and daughters whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; so the land became polluted with blood. ³⁹They defiled themselves by their actions and prostituted themselves by their deeds.

Psalm 106:37-39 (HCSB)

Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord, children, a reward.

Psalm 127:3 (HCSB)

¹³For it was You who created my inward parts; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴I will praise You, because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know [this] very well. ¹⁵My bones were not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. ¹⁶Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all [my] days were written in Your book and planned before a single one of them began. p(notes). *The bracketed texts have been added for clarity.

Psalm 139:13-16 (HCSB)

¹⁶Six things the Lord hates; in fact, seven are detestable to Him: ¹⁷arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,

Proverbs 6:16-17 (HCSB)

¹¹Rescue those being taken off to death, and save those stumbling toward slaughter. ¹²If you say, “But we didn’t know about this,” won’t He who weighs hearts consider it? Won’t He who protects your life know? Won’t He repay a person according to his work? ¹³Eat honey, my son, for it is good, and the honeycomb is sweet to your palate;

Proverbs 24:11-13 (HCSB)

⁵Just as you don’t know the path of the wind, or how bones [develop] in the womb of a pregnant woman, so you don’t know the work of God who makes everything. p(notes). *The bracketed text has been added for clarity.

Ecclesiastes 11:5 (HCSB)

²⁴This is what the Lord, your Redeemer who formed you from the womb, says: I am the Lord, who made everything; who stretched out the heavens by Myself; who alone spread out the earth;

Isaiah 44:24 (HCSB)

¹Coastlands, listen to me; distant peoples, pay attention. The Lord called me before I was born. He named me while I was in my mother’s womb. . . . ⁵And now, says the Lord, who formed me from the womb to be His servant,

Isaiah 49:1,5a (HCSB)

⁸Yet Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are our potter; we all are the work of Your hands.

Isaiah 64:8 (HCSB)

⁵I chose you before I formed you in the womb; I set you apart before you were born.

Jeremiah 1:5 (HCSB)

⁴“Haven’t you read,” He replied, “that He who created them in the beginning made them male and female,

Matthew 19:4 (HCSB)

⁶But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female.

Mark 10:6 (HCSB)

⁴¹When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped inside her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ⁴²Then she exclaimed with a loud cry: You are the most blessed of women, and your child will be blessed! ⁴³How could this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴For you see, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy inside me!

Luke 1:41-44 (HCSB)

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

Luke 17:2 (HCSB)

Neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives everyone life and breath and all things.

Acts 17:25 (HCSB)

But when God, who from my mother’s womb set me apart and called me by His grace, was pleased

Galations 1:15 (HCSB)

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

Genesis 1:28 (HCSB)

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is like him.”

Genesis 2:18 (HCSB)

¹God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. ⁷But you, be fruitful and multiply; spread out over the earth and multiply on it.”

Genesis 9:1 & 7 (HCSB)

³Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord, children, a reward. ⁴Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons born in one’s youth. ⁵Happy is the man who has filled his quiver with them. Such men will never be put to shame when they speak with [their] enemies at the city gate.

Psalm 127:3-5 (HCSB)

³Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house, your sons, like young olive trees around your table. ⁴In this very way the man who fears the Lord will be blessed.

Psalm 128:3-4 (HCSB)

Didn’t the one [God] make [us] with a remnant of His life-breath? And what does the One seek? A godly offspring. So watch yourselves carefully, and do not act treacherously against the wife of your youth.

Malachi 2:15 (HCSB)

Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, [it is clear] what sort of people you should be in holy conduct and godliness.

2 Peter 3:11 (HCSB)

Rescue the poor and needy; save them from the hand of the wicked.

Psalm 82:4 (HCSB)

"And the King will answer them, 'I assure you: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’

Matthew 25:40 (HCSB)

I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live

Deuteronomy 30:19 (HCSB)

"You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden.

Matthew 5:14,16 (HCSB)

So we must not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don't give up.

Galatians 6:9 (HCSB)

And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.

Ephesians 4:32 (HCSB)

This is My command: love one another as I have loved you.

John 15:12 (HCSB)