Genesis 2-3

International Children’s Bible

The Seventh Day—Rest

2 So the sky, the earth and all that filled them were finished. ² By the seventh day God finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day he rested from all his work. ³ God blessed the seventh day and made it a holy day. He made it holy because on that day he rested. He rested from all the work he had done in creating the world.

The First People

⁴ This is the story of the creation of the sky and the earth. When the Lord God made the earth and the sky, ⁵ there were no plants on the earth. Nothing was growing in the fields. The Lord God had not yet made it rain on the land. And there was no man to care for the ground. ⁶ But a mist often rose from the earth and watered all the ground.

⁷ Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and formed man from it. The Lord breathed the breath of life into the man’s nose. And the man became a living person. ⁸ Then the Lord God planted a garden in the East, in a place called Eden. He put the man he had formed in that garden. ⁹ The 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 he put there the tree that gives the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰ A river flowed through Eden and watered the garden. From that point the river was divided. It had four streams flowing into it. ¹¹ The name of the first stream is Pishon. It flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹² That gold is good. Bdellium and onyx^[a] are also there. ¹³ The name of the second river is Gihon. It flows around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴ The name of the third river is Tigris. It flows out of Assyria toward the east. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵ The Lord God put the man in the garden of Eden to care for it and work it. ¹⁶ The Lord God commanded him, “You may eat the fruit from any tree in the garden. ¹⁷ But 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

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

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

²³ And the man said,

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

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

The Beginning of Sin

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

² The woman answered the snake, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. ³ But 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.’”

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

⁶ The woman saw that the tree was beautiful. She saw 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.

⁷ Then, it was as if the man’s and the woman’s eyes were opened. They realized they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made something to cover themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹⁴ The Lord God said to the snake,

¹⁶ Then God said to the woman,

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

²⁰ The man named his wife Eve.^[c] This is because she is the mother of everyone who ever lived.

²¹ The Lord God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife. And so the Lord dressed them. ²² Then the Lord God said, “Look, the man has become like one of us. He knows good and evil. And now we must keep him from eating some of the fruit from the tree of life. If he does, he will live forever.” ²³ So the Lord God forced the man out of the garden of Eden. He had to work the ground he was taken from. ²⁴ God forced the man out of the garden. Then God put angels on the east side of the garden. He also put a sword of fire there. It flashed around in every direction. This kept people from getting to the tree of life.