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The Fall Into Sin

Now the serpent was more clever than any wild animal which the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, but not from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it. You shall not touch it, or else you will die.’”

The serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die. In fact, God knows that the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was appealing to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate. She gave some also to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. The eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for their waists.[a] They heard the voice of the Lord God, who was walking around in the garden during the cooler part[b] of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

The Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

10 The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.”

11 God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”

12 The man said, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

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

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14 The Lord God said to the serpent:

Because you have done this,
you are cursed more than all the livestock,
and more than every wild animal.
You shall crawl on your belly,
and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
15 I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed.[c]
He will crush your head,
and you will crush his heel.

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Footnotes

  1. Genesis 3:7 The Hebrew word often means belt, but here it apparently is an apron or a loincloth.
  2. Genesis 3:8 Literally the wind or breeze of the day, that is, late afternoon or evening
  3. Genesis 3:15 In the promises of Genesis and their fulfillment, the translation retains the literal expression seed rather than offspring or descendants to keep the imagery of the Messiah as the Seed of the Woman.