Genesis 3:14–21

^14–15God told the serpent:

“Because you’ve done this, you’re cursed,

cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals,

Cursed to slink on your belly

and eat dirt all your life.

I’m declaring war between you and the Woman,

between your offspring and hers.

He’ll wound your head,

you’ll wound his heel.”

¹⁶He told the Woman:

“I’ll multiply your pains in childbirth;

you’ll give birth to your babies in pain.

You’ll want to please your husband,

but he’ll lord it over you.”

^17–19He told the Man:

“Because you listened to your wife

and ate from the tree

That I commanded you not to eat from,

‘Don’t eat from this tree,’

The very ground is cursed because of you;

getting food from the ground

Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife;

you’ll be working in pain all your life long.

The ground will sprout thorns and weeds,

you’ll get your food the hard way,

Planting and tilling and harvesting,

sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk,

Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried;

you started out as dirt, you’ll end up dirt.”

²⁰The Man, known as Adam, named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living.

²¹God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.