¹ Now, the snake was the most subtle of all the wild animals that Yahweh God had made. It asked the woman, 'Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?'

² The woman answered the snake, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden.

³ But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, "You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death." '

⁴ Then the snake said to the woman, 'No! You will not die!

⁵ God knows in fact that the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good from evil.'

⁶ The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was enticing for the wisdom that it could give. So she took some of its fruit 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 realised that they were naked. So they sewed fig-leaves together to make themselves loin-cloths.

⁸ The man and his wife heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from Yahweh God among the trees of the garden.

⁹ But Yahweh God called to the man. 'Where are you?' he asked.

¹⁰ 'I heard the sound of you in the garden,' he replied. 'I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.'

¹¹ 'Who told you that you were naked?' he asked. 'Have you been eating from the tree I forbade you to eat?'

¹² The man replied, 'It was the woman you put with me; she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.'

¹³ Then Yahweh God said to the woman, 'Why did you do that?' The woman replied, 'The snake tempted me and I ate.'

¹⁴ Then Yahweh God said to the snake, 'Because you have done this, Accursed be you of all animals wild and tame! On your belly you will go and on dust you will feed as long as you live.

¹⁵ I shall put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; it will bruise your head and you will strike its heel.'

¹⁶ To the woman he said: I shall give you intense pain in childbearing, you will give birth to your children in pain. Your yearning will be for your husband, and he will dominate you.

¹⁷ To the man he said, 'Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, Accursed be the soil because of you! Painfully will you get your food from it as long as you live.

¹⁸ It will yield you brambles and thistles, as you eat the produce of the land.

¹⁹ By the sweat of your face will you earn your food, until you return to the ground, as you were taken from it. For dust you are and to dust you shall return.'

²⁰ The man named his wife 'Eve' because she was the mother of all those who live.

²¹ Yahweh God made tunics of skins for the man and his wife and clothed them.

²² Then Yahweh God said, 'Now that the man has become like one of us in knowing good from evil, he must not be allowed to reach out his hand and pick from the tree of life too, and eat and live for ever!'

²³ So Yahweh God expelled him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he had been taken.

²⁴ He banished the man, and in front of the garden of Eden he posted the great winged creatures and the fiery flashing sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.

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The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

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