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 eat from any tree in the garden’?” ^(A)

² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. ³ But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’”^(B)

⁴ “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman.^{(C) 5} “In fact, God knows that when^[a] you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶ The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.^{(D) 7} Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

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,^[b] and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.^{(E) 9} So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ And he said, “I heard you^[c] 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 eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

¹² The man replied,^(F) “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”

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

And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”^(G)

¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the serpent:

¹⁶ He said to the woman:

¹⁷ And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’:

²⁰ The man named his wife Eve^[g] 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 reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.”^{(O) 23} So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.^(P)

Judgment Decreed

⁵ When the Lord saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time,^(A)

Psalm 1

The Two Ways

Psalm 32

The Joy of Forgiveness

Of David. A Maskil.

Psalm 51

A Prayer for Restoration

For the choir director. A psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him after he had gone to Bathsheba.^(A)

⁵ Then I said:

The Deceitful Heart

Take Up Your Cross

²⁴ Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.^{(A) 25} For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.^{(B) 26} For what will it benefit someone if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? Or what will anyone give in exchange for his life?^{(C) 27} For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father,^(D) and then he will reward each according to what he has done.

³⁶ “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”

³⁷ He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.^{[a](A) 38} This is the greatest and most important^[b] command. ³⁹ The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.^{[c](B) 40} All the Law and the Prophets depend^[d] on these two commands.”^(C)