Chapter 2 Verses 18-25

Chapter 3 Verses 1-7

¹⁸ Now the Lord God said, “It is not good (beneficial) for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper [one who balances him—a counterpart who is] [a]suitable and complementary for him.” ¹⁹ So the Lord God formed out of the ground every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ And the man gave names to all the livestock, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for Adam there was not found a helper [that was] suitable (a companion) for him. ²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and while he slept, He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man He made (fashioned, formed) into a woman, and He brought her and presented her to the man. ²³ Then Adam said,

“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”

²⁴ For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. ²⁵ And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed or embarrassed.

The Fall of Man

3 Now the serpent was more crafty (subtle, skilled in deceit) than any living creature of the field which the Lord God had made. And ^[a]the serpent (Satan) said to the woman, “Can it really be that God has said, ‘You shall not eat from ^[b]any tree of the garden’?” ² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, ³ except the fruit from the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God said, ‘You shall not eat from it nor touch it, otherwise you will die.’” ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die! ⁵ For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened [that is, you will have greater awareness], and you will be like God, knowing [the difference between] good and evil.” ⁶ And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was delightful to look at, and a tree to be desired in order to make one wise and insightful, she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband ^[c]with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of the two of them were opened [that is, their awareness increased], and they knew that they were naked; and they fastened fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

Footnotes:

1. Genesis 2:18 Lit like his opposite.
2. Genesis 3:1 The relationship between Satan and the serpent is not made clear, but Satan is identified with the serpent later in Rev 12:9, 14, 15, and 20:2. It seems difficult to believe that Eve would not have been suspicious of a talking creature, but at this point in time Eve probably knew next to nothing about animals; and in any case, the serpent, as it existed before the curse (v 14), was a very different creature from the reptile that is familiar to us today.
3. Genesis 3:1 Or every.
4. Genesis 3:6 This may have been sometime later. Jewish tradition said that Adam was absent at the time of Eve’s conversation with the serpent (according to the Talmud).