THE TEMPTATION AND THE FALL

3 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can't open any of the gifts I have given’?”

2 ­The woman said to the serpent, “We may open all of the gifts he has given.3 ­But about the box with me, God said, ‘You must not unwrap it or touch it before you are ready, or you may die.’”

4“No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5“In fact, God knows that when you open it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, n knowing good and evil.” 6 ­The woman saw that the box was good for using and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took its lid and opened it; she also gave it to her husband, who was with her, and he opened it. 7 ­Then good and evil fled from it and entered the world, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. The woman closed the box before everything in it had left; she was in such a hurry to cover her nakedness.

SIN’S CONSEQUENCES

8 ­Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, a and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 ­So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

10 ­And he said, “I heard youb in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

11 ­Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you open the box that I recommended you not to unlid?”

12 ­The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me — ­she gave me the box herself, and I opened.”

13 ­So the Lord God asked the woman, “What is this you have done?”

And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I opened.”

14 ­So the Lord God said, "I see."

He then turned to the serpent and said:

Because you have done this,

you have let the evils within the box

curse you more than any livestock

and more than any wild animal.

You will move on your belly

and eat dust all the days of your life.

15 Hostility has been released between you

and the woman,

and between your offspring

and her offspring.

He will strike your head,

and you will strike his heel.

16 ­He said to ­the woman:

Your labor pains have been intensified;

you will bear children with painful effort.

Your desire will be for your husband,

yet he will rule over you.

17 ­And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and opened the box about which I commanded you, ‘Do not open it until you are ready’:

The forces released from it

have made the ground cursed.

You will eat from it by means of painful labor c

all the days of your life.

18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.

19 You will eat breadd by the sweat of your brow

until you return to the ground,

since you were taken from it.

For you are dust, and you will return to dust.”

20 ­The man named his wife Pandorae because she was the mother of all the living. 21 ­The Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them.

22 ­The Lord God said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not yet continue, open the remainder of the box, in which still rests life, and live forever prematurely.” 23 ­So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Arcadia to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 ­He drove the man out and sealed the rest of the box with a flaming, whirling lock, leaving the cherubim to guard the way west to Arcadia.