New International Reader's Version

Genesis 3:14-23 New International Reader's Version (NIRV)

14. So the Lord God spoke to the serpent. He said, "Because you have done this, "I am putting a curse on you. You are cursed more than all of the livestock and all of the wild animals. You will crawl on the ground. You will eat dust all of the days of your life.

15. I will put hatred between you and the woman. Your children and her children will be enemies. Her son will crush your head. And you will crush his heel."

16. The Lord God said to the woman, "I will greatly increase your pain when you give birth. You will be in pain when you have children. You will long for your husband. And he will rule over you."

17. The Lord God said to Adam, "You listened to your wife. You ate the fruit of the tree that I commanded you about. I said, 'You must not eat its fruit.' "So I am putting a curse on the ground because of what you did. All the days of your life you will have to work hard to get food from the ground.

18. You will eat the plants of the field, even though the ground produces thorns and thistles.

19. You will have to work hard and sweat a lot to produce the food you eat. You were made out of the ground. And you will return to it. You are dust. So you will return to it."

20. Adam named his wife Eve. She would become the mother of every living person.

21. The Lord God made clothes out of animal skins for Adam and his wife to wear.

22. The Lord God said, "The man has become like one of us. He can now tell the difference between good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and pick fruit from the tree of life and eat it. If he does, he will live forever."

23. So the Lord God drove the man out of the Garden of Eden to work the ground he had been made out of.