The Tree, the Serpent, and the Expulsion

The man is placed in a garden planted eastward in Eden and told to work it and keep it. Every tree is his to eat from except one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the penalty attached to it is death on the day he eats. A woman is made because it is not good for the man to be alone and because none of the animals is a fit counterpart. The serpent, described only as the most subtle of the creatures God had made, opens by misquoting the prohibition as covering every tree, draws the correction out of the woman, and then contradicts the penalty directly: they will not die, but their eyes will be opened and they will be like God, knowing good and evil. She eats, gives to the man who is with her, and their eyes are opened, at which the first thing they know is that they are naked.

What follows is a scene of questioning rather than of immediate punishment. God walks in the garden at the breeze of the day, calls, and receives evasion: the man blames the woman and, in the same breath, the God who gave her to him; the woman blames the serpent. Sentences are then pronounced in reverse order of the eating, on the serpent, on the woman and on the ground for the man's sake, and the pair are put out of the garden lest they eat also of the tree of life and live for ever, with cherubim and a turning sword of flame set to guard the way back.