Genesis 3

The Fall

3Now the serpent^e was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?^f”

²The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,^{g 3}but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”^h

⁴“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.^{i 5}“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,^j knowing good and evil.”

⁶When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable^k for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband,^l who was with her, and he ate it.^{m 7}Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked;ⁿ so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.^o

⁸Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking^p in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid^q from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”^r

¹⁰He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid^s because I was naked;^t so I hid.”

¹¹And he said, “Who told you that you were naked?^u Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?^v”

¹²The man said, “The woman you put here with me^w—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

¹³Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me,^x and I ate.”

¹⁴So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed^y are you above all livestock

and all wild animals!

You will crawl on your belly

and you will eat dust^z

all the days of your life.

¹⁵And I will put enmity

between you and the woman,

and between your offspring^aa and hers;^b

he will crush^b your head,^c

and you will strike his heel.”

¹⁶To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;

with painful labor you will give birth to children.^d

Your desire will be for your husband,

and he will rule over you.^e”

¹⁷To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’^f

“Cursed^g is the ground^h because of you;

through painful toilⁱ you will eat food from it

all the days of your life.^j

¹⁸It will produce thorns and thistles^k for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.^l

¹⁹By the sweat of your brow^m

you will eat your foodⁿ

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

and to dust you will return.”^o

²⁰Adam^c named his wife Eve,^dp because she would become the mother of all the living.

²¹The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.^{q 22}And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us,^r knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life^s and eat, and live forever.” ²³So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden^t to work the ground^u from which he had been taken. ²⁴After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side^e of the Garden of Eden^v cherubim^w and a flaming sword^x flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.^y