A Window of Grace

16To the woman he said,

‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;

with painful labour you will give birth to children.

Your desire will be for your husband,

and he will rule over you.’

17To 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.

18It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.

19By 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.’

20Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

21The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22And 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 for ever.’ 23So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing to and fro to guard the way to the tree of life.