The Serpent and the Test
1Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals Yahweh God had made. It said to the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” 2The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of 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, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” 4The serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8They heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid from Yahweh God among the trees of the garden. 9Yahweh God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10He answered, “I heard your sound in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.” 11God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat from?” 12The man said, “The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13Yahweh God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Yahweh Pronounces Judgment
14Then Yahweh God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above every animal, wild or tame. On your belly you will crawl, and dust you will eat, all the days of your life. 15I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” 16To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pain in childbirth; in pain you will bear children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” 17And to the man he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful labor you will eat from it all the days of your life. 18It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19By the sweat of your face you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground — for out of it you were taken. For dust you are, and to dust you will return.” 20The man named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. 21Yahweh God made garments of skin for the man and his wife and clothed them. 22Then Yahweh God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now he must not be allowed to reach out, take also from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” 23So Yahweh God sent him out of the garden of Eden, to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24He drove the man out, and stationed the cherubim east of the garden of Eden, along with a flaming sword that turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
