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 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.”