The Serpent's Lie
3 1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals our Father had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" a a v1 Having rejected our Father, the serpent reframes him as a distant, withholding deity — the foundational lie that hides the Father's heart from his children.
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, 'You must not eat it, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"
4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will certainly not die. 5 For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." b b v5 The serpent has been lying since Genesis 3:1 that God is a distant, unrelational deity — not the intimate Father he truly is.
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7 The eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then they heard the sound of our Father walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid from his presence among the trees of the garden.
9 But our Father called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?"
10 He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid."
11 Our Father said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
12 The man said, "The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
13 Then our Father said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
14 So our Father said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all wild animals; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. c c v15 From the very first promise after the fall, our Father pointed to Jesus — the offspring who would crush the serpent and rescue his children.
16 To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pain in childbirth; in pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.
17 And to Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree that I commanded you, saying, 'You must not eat from it,' cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you will return.
20 The man named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. d d v20 The name Eve means "living" — she is the mother of all the living.
21 Our Father made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and he clothed them. e e v21 After their failure, our Father provides for his children a covering better than what they made for themselves — the first picture of his heart to clothe them with what only he can give.
22 Then our Father said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever." 23 So our Father sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 He drove out the man and stationed the cherubim on the east side of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword flashing back and forth, to guard the way to the tree of life. f f v24 Cherubim in Scripture are not the tiny cherub-figures of Renaissance art but powerful heavenly guardians our Father assigned to protect the sacred way back to life.