The Fall of Man

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;

The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life;

“Dan shall be a serpent in the way, A horned snake in the path, That bites the horse’s heels, So that his rider falls backward.

Then He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it.

Aaron’s Rod Becomes a Serpent

Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,

“When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, ‘Work a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’”

So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and thus they did just as the Lord had commanded; and Aaron threw his staff down before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.

For each one threw down his staff and they turned into serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.

Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he is going out to the water, and station yourself to meet him on the bank of the Nile; and you shall take in your hand the staff that was turned into a serpent.

The Bronze Serpent

The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.

So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.”

And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint.

“Their wine is the venom of serpents, And the deadly poison of cobras.

He removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan.

“By His breath the heavens are cleared; His hand has pierced the fleeing serpent.

They have venom like the venom of a serpent; Like a deaf cobra that stops up its ear,

You will tread upon the lion and cobra, The young lion and the serpent you will trample down.

They sharpen their tongues as a serpent; Poison of a viper is under their lips. Selah.

At the last it bites like a serpent And stings like a viper.

The way of an eagle in the sky, The way of a serpent on a rock, The way of a ship in the middle of the sea, And the way of a man with a maid.