Chapter 3

Chapter 3

1 Now the serpent was more shrewd than any beast of the field that The Self-Existent, The All-Powerful One had fashioned. And he said to the woman, “Did The All-Powerful One really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

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

3 but from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, The All-Powerful One has said, ‘You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 The serpent said to the woman, “Dying, you will absolutely not die!

5 For The All-Powerful One knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like The All-Powerful One, knowing what is good and what is harmful.”

6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was beautiful to look at, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her man with her, and he ate.

7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves waist-coverings.

8 And they heard the voice of The Self-Existent, The All-Powerful One moving in the garden in the cool breeze of the day, and the man and his woman hid themselves from the presence of The Self-Existent, The All-Powerful One among the trees of the garden.

9 Then The Self-Existent, The All-Powerful One called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

10 And the man said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I am naked; so I hid myself.”

11 He 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 whom You gave to be with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.”

13 Then The Self-Existent, The All-Powerful One said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14 And The Self-Existent, The All-Powerful One said to the serpent:

“Because you have done this,
you are cursed above all livestock
and above every beast of the field;
upon your belly you shall crawl,
and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
15 And I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall crush your head,
and you shall crush his heel.”
16 To the woman He said:
“I will greatly multiply your painful strain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your man,
and he shall rule over you.”

17 Then to the man He said, “Because you listened to the voice of your woman and ate from the tree from which I commanded you, saying, ‘You must not eat from it,’

the soil is cursed because of you;
in painful strain you shall eat from it
all the days of your life.
18 Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread,
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken
for dust you are,
and to dust you shall return.”

20 And the man called his woman’s name Eve (Life-Giver), because she was the mother of all living.

21 Then The Self-Existent, The All-Powerful One made garments of skin for the man and for his woman, and He clothed them.

22 Then The Self-Existent, The All-Powerful One said, “Look, the man has become like one of Us, knowing what is good and what is harmful; and now, lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever—”

23 therefore The Self-Existent, The All-Powerful One sent him out from the garden of Eden to cultivate the soil from which he had been taken.

24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way, to guard the path to the tree of life.