Genesis 3:1-24
The Fall
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 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.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then 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 the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he 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 put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food 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 food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God 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 the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
One might believe there was no pain and suffering, and maybe even no evil in the world in Paradise...But I wonder if temptation has always been around...Where there is temptation, there is a chance for evil to raise its ugly head...
And the Lord God 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.”...So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken...After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life...
The choices we make each day affects our lives...When Eve and Adam disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit and sinned pain would be involved in this event...They chose to eat the fruit that God had told them not to eat...And so pain as well as evil came into being...God tells Eve after she ate the forbidden fruit that “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children...Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”...Then God tells Adam that “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life...It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field...By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”...
Pain was not a part of Eden (and neither was evil), when God created this Paradise...But pain would come now into our world through disobeying God...So God tells us that Eve would have pain every time she conceived...Then God tells Adam that through painful toil he shall work to find and gather his food...Pain would be linked to the Fall of Man and to God...God is linked to our pains...God gets our attention through pain...And so God who created the earth as well as Adam and Eve, must have His Good reasons for now creating pain...Pain gets our attention, and no doubt, after they left the Garden of Eden, every time Adam and Eve had this feeling of pain they would think of God...So God would get Adam and Eve's attention through their aches, their pains, their sufferings...This would be especially true during childbirth and after a tiring day of work and toil, as He told them...Adam and Eve would remember these things of pain as they labored and toiled in their new home outside of Eden and would probably think of God and their old home...
It is best to obey God...It is best to be close to Him...It is best to be in Paradise and Heaven with Him...