1Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?”
2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, 3but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it. You shall not touch it, lest you die.’”
4The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die, 5for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took some of its fruit, and ate. Then she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it, too. 7Their eyes were opened, and they both knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made coverings for themselves. 8They heard Yahweh God’s voice walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden.
9Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”
10The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid myself.”
11God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13Yahweh God said to the woman, “What have you done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14Yahweh God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
you are cursed above all livestock,
and above every animal of the field.
You shall go on your belly
and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
15I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will bruise your head,
and you will bruise his heel.”
16To the woman he said,
“I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth.
You will bear children in pain.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17To Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to your wife’s voice,
and have eaten from the tree,
about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’
the ground is cursed for your sake.
You will eat from it with much labor all the days of your life.
18It will yield thorns and thistles to you;
and you will eat the herb of the field.
19You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground,
for you were taken out of it.
For you are dust,
and you shall return to dust.”
20The man called his wife Eve because she would be the mother of all the living. 21Yahweh God made garments of animal skins for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them.
22Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever—” 23Therefore Yahweh God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24So he drove out the man; and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
God constructed an environment that was perfect for creation to flourish. But it’s not long before things start to go wrong. In many ways the story of Adam (meaning humanity) and Eve (meaning life) is a reflection of our story. We humans seem to have a tendency to corrupt what is good and choose what is wrong. A bible term for this corruption is sin. Sin is simply doing anything that would lead us away from God.
Before they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil everything was perfect for Adam and Eve. They were told not to eat from that one tree, but everything else was given to them in abundance. God held back on this one thing because in love he wanted to keep them safe. Once they ate the fruit everything changed. Suddenly they were aware of everything including their nakedness and it brought them great shame. In an effort to cover their shame they sewed some leaves together to make clothes.
God comes to the garden of Eden and calls out for his friends. The couple now hide from the one who loves them because they know they have done wrong. God continues to look for them and finds them trying to conceal their shame. His perfect creation has been corrupted by sin. God asks them for an explanation and they recount the whole sorry tale, ‘the serpent made me do it’ or ‘the woman made me do it.’ (verses 12&13)
God saw their attempts to cover their nakedness and he knew that a few leaves sown together was not enough to clothe them, so God provides animal skins for them to wear by killing an innocent animal. So here at the very beginning of the book of Genesis God first reveals his response to our sin, in that the sacrifice of an innocent will be used to cover the shame of the guilty. Often, we hide away from God ashamed of our own wrong doing, but God continues to call out for us. Genesis teaches us that God pursues us even when we get it wrong and he longs to find us where we are to remind us of how precious we are to him. God is God and He is love.