Genesis 3:17-23

17Then God said to Adam, ‘You listened to your wife and you did what she said. You ate fruit from the tree after I told you, “You must not eat fruit from this tree.” Because you did that, I will curse the ground. You will have to work very hard to make plants grow in it for your food. It will be like this for your whole life.

18Thorn bushes and thistles will grow in the ground. But you will eat plants that grow in the fields.

19You will have to work hard for a long time before you have any food to eat. You will do this for your whole life until you die. Then you will return into the ground. That is where you came from. I made you from the soil of the ground, and you will become soil again.’

20Adam gave his wife a name. He called her Eve. This was because she would become the mother of all people.

21The Lord God made clothes for Adam and Eve to wear. He used the skins from animals to make them.

22The Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us because he understands good and evil. So we must not let him take fruit from the tree that gives life. If he eats that fruit, he will live for ever.’

23So the Lord God sent Adam out of the Garden of Eden. To get his food, Adam had to dig the ground that God had used to make him.