Genesis 2:4–4:26

The First People

⁴This is the story of the creation of the sky and the earth. When the Lord God first made the earth and the sky, ⁵there were still no plants on the earth. Nothing was growing in the fields because the Lord God had not yet made it rain on the land. And there was no person to care for the ground, ⁶but a mist would rise up from the earth and water all the ground.

⁷Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and formed a man from it. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nose, and the man became a living person. ⁸Then the Lord God planted a garden in the east, in a place called Eden, and put the man he had formed into it. ⁹The Lord God caused every beautiful tree and every tree that was good for food to grow out of the ground. In the middle of the garden, God put the tree that gives life and also the tree that gives the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰A river flowed through Eden and watered the garden. From there the river branched out to become four rivers. ¹¹The first river, named Pishon, flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹²The gold of that land is excellent. Bdellium and onyx ⁿ are also found there. ¹³The second river, named Gihon, flows around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴The third river, named Tigris, flows out of Assyria toward the east. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵The Lord God put the man in the garden of Eden to care for it and work it. ¹⁶The Lord God commanded him, “You may eat the fruit from any tree in the garden, ¹⁷but you must not eat the fruit from the tree which gives the knowledge of good and evil. If you ever eat fruit from that tree, you will die!”

The First Woman

¹⁸Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is right for him.”

¹⁹From the ground God formed every wild animal and every bird in the sky, and he brought them to the man so the man could name them. Whatever the man called each living thing, that became its name. ²⁰The man gave names to all the tame animals, to the birds in the sky, and to all the wild animals. But Adam ⁿ did not find a helper that was right for him. ²¹So the Lord God caused the man to sleep very deeply, and while he was asleep, God removed one of the man’s ribs. Then God closed up the man’s skin at the place where he took the rib. ²²The Lord God used the rib from the man to make a woman, and then he brought the woman to the man.

²³And the man said,

“Now, this is someone whose bones came from my bones,

whose body came from my body.

I will call her ‘woman,’

because she was taken out of man.”

²⁴So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body.

²⁵The man and his wife were naked, but they were not ashamed.

The Beginning of Sin

3Now the snake was the most clever of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day the snake said to the woman, “Did God really say that you must not eat fruit from any tree in the garden?”

²The woman answered the snake, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. ³But God told us, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch it, or you will die.’ ”

⁴But the snake said to the woman, “You will not die. ⁵God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, you will learn about good and evil and you will be like God!”

⁶The woman saw that the tree was beautiful, that its fruit was good to eat, and that it would make her wise. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of the fruit to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

⁷Then, it was as if their eyes were opened. They realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made something to cover themselves.

⁸Then they heard the Lord God walking in the garden during the cool part of the day, and the man and his wife hid from the Lord God among the trees in the garden. ⁹But the Lord God called to the man and said, “Where are you?”

¹⁰The man answered, “I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

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

¹²The man said, “You gave this woman to me and she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it.”

¹³Then the Lord God said to the woman, “How could you have done such a thing?”

She answered, “The snake tricked me, so I ate the fruit.”

¹⁴The Lord God said to the snake,

“Because you did this,

a curse will be put on you.

You will be cursed as no other animal, tame or wild, will ever be.

You will crawl on your stomach,

and you will eat dust all the days of your life.

¹⁵I will make you and the woman

enemies to each other.

Your descendants and her descendants

will be enemies.

One of her descendants will crush your head,

and you will bite his heel.”

¹⁶Then God said to the woman,

“I will cause you to have much trouble

when you are pregnant,

and when you give birth to children,

you will have great pain.

You will greatly desire your husband,

but he will rule over you.”

¹⁷Then God said to the man, “You listened to what your wife said, and you ate fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat.

“So I will put a curse on the ground,

and you will have to work very hard for your food.

In pain you will eat its food

all the days of your life.

¹⁸The ground will produce thorns and weeds for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.

¹⁹You will sweat and work hard for your food.

Later you will return to the ground,

because you were taken from it.

You are dust,

and when you die, you will return to the dust.”

²⁰The man named his wife Eve, ⁿ because she was the mother of all the living.

²¹The Lord God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and dressed them. ²²Then the Lord God said, “Humans have become like one of us; they know good and evil. We must keep them from eating some of the fruit from the tree of life, or they will live forever.” ²³So the Lord God forced Adam out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴After God forced humans out of the garden, he placed angels and a sword of fire that flashed around in every direction on its eastern border. This kept people from getting to the tree of life.

The First Family

4Adam had sexual relations with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. ⁿ Eve said, “With the Lord’s help, I have given birth to a man.” ²After that, Eve gave birth to Cain’s brother Abel. Abel took care of flocks, and Cain became a farmer.

³Later, Cain brought some food from the ground as a gift to God. ⁴Abel brought the best parts from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, ⁵but he did not accept Cain and his gift. So Cain became very angry and felt rejected.

⁶The Lord asked Cain, “Why are you angry? Why do you look so unhappy? ⁷If you do things well, I will accept you, but if you do not do them well, sin is ready to attack you. Sin wants you, but you must rule over it.”

⁸Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out into the field.” While they were out in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

⁹Later, the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

Cain answered, “I don’t know. Is it my job to take care of my brother?”

¹⁰Then the Lord said, “What have you done? Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground. ¹¹And now you will be cursed in your work with the ground, the same ground where your brother’s blood fell and where your hands killed him. ¹²You will work the ground, but it will not grow good crops for you anymore, and you will wander around on the earth.”

¹³Then Cain said to the Lord, “This punishment is more than I can stand! ¹⁴Today you have forced me to stop working the ground, and now I must hide from you. I must wander around on the earth, and anyone who meets me can kill me.”

¹⁵The Lord said to Cain, “No! If anyone kills you, I will punish that person seven times more.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain warning anyone who met him not to kill him.

Cain’s Family

¹⁶So Cain went away from the Lord and lived in the land of Nod, ⁿ east of Eden. ¹⁷He had sexual relations with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. At that time Cain was building a city, which he named after his son Enoch. ¹⁸Enoch had a son named Irad, Irad had a son named Mehujael, Mehujael had a son named Methushael, and Methushael had a son named Lamech.

¹⁹Lamech married two women, Adah and Zillah. ²⁰Adah gave birth to Jabal, who became the first person to live in tents and raise cattle. ²¹Jabal’s brother was Jubal, the first person to play the harp and flute. ²²Zillah gave birth to Tubal-Cain, who made tools out of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah.

²³Lamech said to his wives:

“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice!

You wives of Lamech, listen to what I say.

I killed a man for wounding me,

a young man for hitting me.

²⁴If Cain’s killer is punished seven times,

then Lamech’s killer will be punished seventy-seven times.”

Adam and Eve Have a New Son

²⁵Adam had sexual relations with his wife Eve again, and she gave birth to a son. She named him Seth ⁿ and said, “God has given me another child. He will take the place of Abel, who was killed by Cain.” ²⁶Seth also had a son, and they named him Enosh. At that time people began to pray to the Lord.