Genesis 2:17-3:4

Common English Bible

¹⁷ but don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because on the day you eat from it, you will die!” ¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It’s not good that the human is alone. I will make him a helper that is perfect for him.” ¹⁹ So the Lord God formed from the fertile land all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky and brought them to the human to see what he would name them. The human gave each living being its name. ²⁰ The human named all the livestock, all the birds in the sky, and all the wild animals. But a helper perfect for him was nowhere to be found.

²¹ So the Lord God put the human into a deep and heavy sleep, and took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh over it. ²² With the rib taken from the human, the Lord God fashioned a woman and brought her to the human being. ²³ The human^[a] said,

²⁴ This is the reason that a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife, and they become one flesh. ²⁵ The two of them were naked, the man and his wife, but they weren’t embarrassed.

Knowledge, not eternal life

3 The snake was the most intelligent^[d] of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say that you shouldn’t eat from any tree in the garden?”

² The woman said to the snake, “We may eat the fruit of the garden’s trees ³ but not the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. God said, ‘Don’t eat from it, and don’t touch it, or you will die.’”

⁴ The snake said to the woman, “You won’t die!