The Trouble with Sin
9 The Lord called out to the man and asked, “Where are you?”
10 The man answered, “I was naked, and when I heard you walking through the garden, I was frightened and hid!”
11 “How did you know you were naked?” God asked. “Did you eat any fruit from that tree in the middle of the garden?”
12 “It was the woman you put here with me,” the man said. “She gave me some of the fruit, and I ate it.”
13 The Lord God then asked the woman, “What have you done?”
“The snake tricked me,” she answered. “And I ate some of that fruit.”
14 So the Lord God said to the snake:
“Because of what you have done,
you will be the only animal
to suffer this curse—
For as long as you live,
you will crawl on your stomach
and eat dirt.
15 You and this woman
will hate each other;
your descendants and hers
will always be enemies.
One of hers will strike you
on the head,
and you will strike him
on the heel.”
16 Then the Lord said to the woman,
“You will suffer terribly
when you give birth.
But you will still desire
your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 The Lord said to the man,
“You listened to your wife
and ate fruit from that tree.
And so, the ground
will be under a curse
because of what you did.
As long as you live,
you will have to struggle
to grow enough food.
18 Your food will be plants,
but the ground
will produce
thorns and thistles.
19 You will have to sweat
to earn a living;
you were made out of soil,
and you will once again
turn into soil.”
20 The man Adam
named his wife Eve
because she would become the mother of all who live.
21 Then the Lord God made clothes out of animal skins for the man and his wife.
22 The Lord said, “These people now know the difference between right and wrong, just as we do. But they must not be allowed to eat fruit from the tree that lets them live forever.”
23 So the Lord God sent them out of the Garden of Eden, where they would have to work the ground from which the man had been made. 24 Then God put winged creatures
