1Now the serpent was more shrewd than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Is it really true that God said, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the orchard’?”

2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit from the trees of the orchard;

3but concerning the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the orchard God said, ‘You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, or else you will die.’”

4The serpent said to the woman, “Surely you will not die,

5for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil.”

6When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

7Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

The Judgment Oracles of God at the Fall

8Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard.

9But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

10The man replied, “I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

11And the Lord God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

12The man said, “The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.”

13So the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman replied, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”

14The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all the wild beasts
and all the living creatures of the field!
On your belly you will crawl
and dust you will eat all the days of your life.

15And I will put hostility between you and the woman
and between your offspring and her offspring;
her offspring will attack your head,
and you will attack her offspring’s heel.”

16To the woman he said,
“I will greatly increase your labor pains;
with pain you will give birth to children.
You will want to control your husband,
but he will dominate you.”

17But to Adam he said,
“Because you obeyed your wife
and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,
‘You must not eat from it,’
cursed is the ground thanks to you;
in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

18It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
but you will eat the grain of the field.

19By the sweat of your brow you will eat food
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust, and to dust you will return.”

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

21The Lord God made garments from skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

22And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

23So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.

24When he drove the man out, he placed on the eastern side of the orchard in Eden angelic sentries who used the flame of a whirling sword to guard the way to the tree of life.