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The snake tricked the woman
1 God made lots of animals, but the snake was the animal that had the most brains. He was really smart. One day, the snake went to the woman and said to her, “Did God say, ‘You can’t eat fruit from any of the trees in the garden’? Is that true?”
2 The woman said, “No, that’s not true. We can eat fruit from those trees there in the garden.
3 God said that there is only one tree that we can’t eat from. We can’t eat any fruit that comes from one of the trees that is in the middle of the garden. God will not even let us touch that tree. He said that if we eat fruit from that tree, we will die.”
4 The snake said to the woman, “You will not die.
5 God knows what will happen if you eat fruit from that tree. He knows that if you eat fruit from that tree, you will know more things, like God himself. You will know if the things you do are good, or if they are bad.”
The man and the woman did the wrong thing
6 The woman looked at that tree. It was pretty, and the fruit on that tree looked really good to eat, and she reckoned that if she eats some of that fruit, she will think properly. So the woman got some of that fruit, and she ate it, and she gave some of it to her husband, and he ate that fruit too.
7 Straight away, the man and the woman knew more things. They knew that they were naked, and they felt shame. They wanted to make clothes to cover up their naked bodies, so they picked some big leaves from a tree and sewed the leaves together to make some clothes.
The man and the woman tried to hide from God
8 Later on, in the cool part of the day, the man and the woman heard God walking in the garden. So they got behind some trees in the garden to hide from God.
9 God called out to the man, “Where are you?”
10 The man said, “I heard you walking in the garden and I was frightened, because I’m naked. So I hid from you.”
11 God asked the man, “How do you know that you are naked? Did you eat some of that fruit from the tree that I told you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “Yes, but it was the woman that you put here with me, she gave me fruit from that tree, so I ate it.”
13 Then God said to the woman, “Why did you do that bad thing?”
The woman said, “That snake tricked me. That’s the reason why I ate that fruit.”
God judged the snake
14 Then God said, “Snake, you did the wrong thing, so I will curse you. I will not curse the other animals, but I will curse all you snakes. From now on, you are going to crawl around on your bellies. You will always be down on the ground in the dirt.
15 The woman’s kids will hate you, and so will all their kids, and all the people that will be born later on. People will always be your enemies. And Snake, your kids will hate the woman’s kids, and so will all the snake mob that will be born later on. You snake mob will always be the people’s enemies. They will hit your heads, and you will bite their feet.”
God judged the woman
16 Then God said to the woman, “I’m going to give you a lot of trouble. You are going to have a lot of pain whenever you have a baby. It will hurt you a lot. But you will really want to have a husband, and your husband will be your boss.”
God judged the man
17-18 Then God said to the man, “I told you not to eat any fruit from one of the trees in the middle of the garden, but you listened to your wife, and you ate that fruit. So I will curse the ground and make it bad for you. It will never be easy for you to get your food from the plants in the ground any more. The ground will have lots of rubbish plants and prickles in it.
19 You will work very hard to get your food, so you will get hot, and you will sweat a lot. And later on, you will die. I made you from the dirt, and after you die, your body will turn back into dirt.”
God hunted Adam and Eve out of Eden
20 Adam’s wife was the first woman, and all the people in the world came from her. So Adam gave her the name Eve. That name means somebody that gives life.
21 God made some clothes from animal skins for Adam and his wife.
22 After that, God said, “These people are like us now. They know what things are good, and what things are bad. We have to stop them, so they will not eat fruit from the other tree in the middle of the garden, the tree that makes people stay alive. If they eat that fruit, they will live for ever.”
23 So God hunted them out of the garden. To get food, they had to dig the ground and grow plants. You know, God made that man out of the ground, and after they left the garden, that man had to dig that same ground.
24 After God hunted them out of the garden, he made sure that they couldn’t get back. He put some of his angel workers to be guards just outside the east side of the garden in Eden. Their job was to stop anybody from getting near the tree that makes people stay alive. They had long knives that were on fire, and they waved those long knives everywhere, to keep everyone away.