The First Sin and God’s Judgment

3:1-24

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than every living thing of the field that Yahweh God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the garden’?” 2 Then the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat from the fruit of the trees of the garden, 3 except from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden. God said, ‘You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, or else you will die!’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that on the day you eat from it, then your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God in knowing good and evil.” 6 And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. Then she also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made aprons for themselves.

8 Then they heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the breeze of the day, but the man and his wife hid from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden. 9 So Yahweh God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard your sound in the garden, but I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” 11 Then he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 Then the man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13 Then Yahweh God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, so I ate it.”

14 Then Yahweh God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,

you are cursed above all the livestock

and above every living thing of the field.

You will move on your belly,

and you will eat dust

all the days of your life.

15 I will also put hostility

between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring.

He will strike you on the head, and you will strike him on the heel.”

16 To the woman he said,

“I will greatly multiply your pain and your childbearing;

in pain you will bear children.

Yet your desire will be for your husband,

and he will rule over you.”

17 Then to the man he said, “Since you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree that I commanded you, saying, ‘You must not eat from it,’

the ground is cursed because of you.

By painful toil you will eat from it

all the days of your life.

18 And it will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the fields.

19 By the sweat of your nose

you will eat bread,

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken.

For you are dust,

and to dust you will return.”

20 Then the man called the name of his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. 21 Then Yahweh God made garments of animal skins for Adam and his wife, and he clothed them.

22 Then Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. And now he must not reach out his hand and also take fruit from the tree of life and eat it and live forever!” 23 So Yahweh God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to work the ground which he had been taken from. 24 And after he drove the man out, then he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim angels and a flaming sword that was turning in every direction to guard the way of the tree of life.