The Temptation and the Fall

1Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’? ”a

2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”a

4“No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman.a 5“In fact, God knows that whenA you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.a 7Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Sin’s Consequences

8Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze,A and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.a 9So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you? ”

10And he said, “I heard youA in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

11Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? ”

12The man replied,a “The woman you gave to be with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”

13So the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done? ”

And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”a

14So the Lord God said to the serpent:

Because you have done this,

you are cursed more than any livestock

and more than any wild animal.

You will move on your belly

and eat dust all the days of your life.a

15I will put hostility between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring.A

He will strike your head,

and you will strike his heel.a

16He said to the woman:

I will intensify your labor pains;

you will bear children with painful effort.a

Your desireb will be for your husband,

yet he will rule over you.

17And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’:

The ground is cursed because of you.a

You will eat from it by means of painful laborA

all the days of your life.

18It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.a

19You will eat breadA by the sweat of your brow

until you return to the ground,a

since you were taken from it.

For you are dust,

and you will return to dust.”

20The man named his wife EveA because she was the mother of all the living. 21The Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them.

22The Lord God said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.”a 23So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24He drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.a