THE TEMPTATION AND FALL
CHAPTER THREE


Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast the Lord had made,
and he said to the woman, "What is it that God bade 
'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden,?" And to the serpent,
	she replied,
"Of all the fruit of all the trees we may eat, but God said we should die
if we eat of the tree in the middle of the garden." But the serpent
	told her, "No,
you shall not die; for God knows that when you eat it, even so
as God is, you shall then be, knowing evil and knowing good
and your eyes shall be opened." Now the woman saw that for food
the tree indeed was good to eat and  pleasing to the eyes
and desirable for the knowledge to which it would give rise.
So she took  of its fruit and ate it and her husband she gave some
and he also ate. Then the eyes of both were opened and they did come
to realize that they were naked; so they fig-leaves together sewed
and made coverings for themselves so their nakedness no longer
	showed.
When they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden
	in the cool of the day,
from the Lord, the man and his wife, among the trees tried to hide away.
But the Lord God called the man and said, "Where are you?"
	And he said,
"I heard you in the garden and so, because I was naked and afraid,
I hid myself from you." God asked, "Who is it that told you
that you were naked? You have eaten of the tree I commanded
	you not to."
And the man said, "The woman you placed by me gave me fruit
	from the tree and I ate."
Then the Lord God said to the woman, "How came you to choose
	this fate?"
And the woman said, "The serpent deceived me and I ate the fruit."
Then the Lord God told the serpent, "Because you've done this,
	it shall suit
you that you shall be cursed among all the animals of the field,
and on your belly you shall crawl and dust your eating shall yield.
I will place enmity between you and the woman, between your seed
and her seed; he shall crush your head and your shall wait for his heal,
	indeed."
To the woman He said, "I will make your distress in bearing children
	great;
in pain you shall bring forth children; for your husband shall be
	your longing wait,
though he have dominion over you." And onto Adam, He said,
"Because you have listened to your wife and ate of the tree 
	that I forbade,
cursed be the ground because of you, you shall eat in toil
of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles shall the soil
bring forth to you, and you shall eat the plants of the field.
In the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread till returning 
	to the ground you yield,
since out of it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you'll
	return."
And the man called his wife Eve because she was mother of all 
	the living. In turn,
the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and Eve, his wife,
and clothed them, and He said to them, "Indeed, you have brought
	strife.
The man has indeed become like one of us, good and evil he does know!
And now perhaps he'll put forth his hand and take from the tree of life
	even so,
and eat and live forever!" Therefore, the Lord God put him out
of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.
	He drove them out
and at the east of the garden he placed the Cherubim that the man 
	and his wife
might not return, and the flaming sword that turned every way
	to guard the tree of life.


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