1 Of all the beasts which the Lord God had made, there was none that could match the serpent in cunning. It was he who said to the woman, What is this command God has given you, not to eat the fruit of any tree in the garden? 2 To which the woman answered, We can eat the fruit of any tree in the garden 3 except the tree in the middle of it; it is this God has forbidden us to eat or even to touch, on pain of death. 4 And the serpent said to her, What is this talk of death? 5 God knows well that as soon as you eat this fruit your eyes will be opened, and you yourselves will be like gods, knowing good and evil. 6 And with that the woman, who saw that the fruit was good to eat, saw, too, how it was pleasant to look at and charmed the eye,[1] took some fruit from the tree and ate it; and she gave some to her husband, and he ate with her. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they became aware of their nakedness; so they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves girdles.
1 Sed et serpens erat callidior cunctis animantibus terræ quæ fecerat Dominus Deus. Qui dixit ad mulierem: Cur præcepit vobis Deus ut non comederetis de omni ligno paradisi? 2 Cui respondit mulier: De fructu lignorum, quæ sunt in paradiso, vescimur: 3 de fructu vero ligni quod est in medio paradisi, præcepit nobis Deus ne comederemus, et ne tangeremus illud, ne forte moriamur. 4 Dixit autem serpens ad mulierem: Nequaquam morte moriemini. 5 Scit enim Deus quod in quocumque die comederitis ex eo, aperientur oculi vestri, et eritis sicut dii, scientes bonum et malum. 6 Vidit igitur mulier quod bonum esset lignum ad vescendum, et pulchrum oculis, aspectuque delectabile: et tulit de fructu illius, et comedit: deditque viro suo, qui comedit. 7 Et aperti sunt oculi amborum; cumque cognovissent se esse nudos, consuerunt folia ficus, et fecerunt sibi perizomata.
8 And now they heard the voice of the Lord God, as he walked in the garden in the cool of the evening; whereupon Adam and his wife hid themselves in the garden, among the trees. 9 And the Lord God called to Adam; Where art thou? he asked. 10 I heard thy voice, Adam said, in the garden, and I was afraid, because of my nakedness, so I hid myself. 11 And the answer came, Why, who told thee of thy nakedness? Or hadst thou eaten of the tree, whose fruit I forbade thee to eat? 12 The woman, said Adam, whom thou gavest me to be my companion, she it was who offered me fruit from the tree, and so I came to eat it. 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, What made thee do this? The serpent, she said, beguiled me, and so I came to eat.
8 Et cum audissent vocem Domini Dei deambulantis in paradiso ad auram post meridiem, abscondit se Adam et uxor ejus a facie Domini Dei in medio ligni paradisi. 9 Vocavitque Dominus Deus Adam, et dixit ei: Ubi es? 10 Qui ait: Vocem tuam audivi in paradiso, et timui, eo quod nudus essem, et abscondi me. 11 Cui dixit: Quis enim indicavit tibi quod nudus esses, nisi quod ex ligno de quo præceperam tibi ne comederes, comedisti? 12 Dixitque Adam: Mulier, quam dedisti mihi sociam, dedit mihi de ligno, et comedi. 13 Et dixit Dominus Deus ad mulierem: Quare hoc fecisti? Quæ respondit: Serpens decepit me, et comedi.
14 And the Lord God said to the serpent, For this work of thine, thou, alone among all the cattle and all the wild beasts, shalt bear a curse; thou shalt crawl on thy belly and eat dust all thy life long. 15 And I will establish a feud between thee and the woman, between thy offspring and hers; she is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in ambush at her heels.[2] 16 To the woman he said, Many are the pangs, many are the throes I will give thee to endure; with pangs thou shalt give birth to children, and thou shalt be subject to thy husband; he shall be thy lord. 17 And to Adam he said, Thou hast listened to thy wife’s counsel, and hast eaten the fruit I forbade thee to eat; and now, through thy act, the ground is under a curse. All the days of thy life thou shalt win food from it with toil; 18 thorns and thistles it shall yield thee, this ground from which thou dost win thy food. 19 Still thou shalt earn thy bread with the sweat of thy brow, until thou goest back into the ground from which thou wast taken; dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
14 Et ait Dominus Deus ad serpentem:Quia fecisti hoc,maledictus es inter omnia animantia, et bestias terræ:super pectus tuum gradieris, et terram comedes cunctis diebus vitæ tuæ. 15 Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem,et semen tuum et semen illius:ipsa conteret caput tuum,et tu insidiaberis calcaneo ejus. 16 Mulieri quoque dixit: Multiplicabo ærumnas tuas, et conceptus tuos: in dolore paries filios, et sub viri potestate eris, et ipse dominabitur tui. 17 Adæ vero dixit: Quia audisti vocem uxoris tuæ, et comedisti de ligno, ex quo præceperam tibi ne comederes, maledicta terra in opere tuo: in laboribus comedes ex ea cunctis diebus vitæ tuæ. 18 Spinas et tribulos germinabit tibi, et comedes herbam terræ. 19 In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane, donec revertaris in terram de qua sumptus es: quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris.
21 And now the Lord provided garments for Adam and his wife, made out of skins, to clothe them. 22 He said, too, Here is Adam become like one of ourselves, with knowledge of good and evil; now he has only to lift his hand and gather fruit to eat from the tree of life as well, and he will live endlessly. 23 So the Lord God drove him out from that garden of delight, to cultivate the ground from which he came; 24 banished Adam, and posted his Cherubim before the garden of delight, with a sword of fire that turned this way and that, so that he could reach the tree of life no longer.
21 Fecit quoque Dominus Deus Adæ et uxori ejus tunicas pelliceas, et induit eos: 22 et ait: Ecce Adam quasi unus ex nobis factus est, sciens bonum et malum: nunc ergo ne forte mittat manum suam, et sumat etiam de ligno vitæ, et comedat, et vivat in æternum. 23 Et emisit eum Dominus Deus de paradiso voluptatis, ut operaretur terram de qua sumptus est. 24 Ejecitque Adam: et collocavit ante paradisum voluptatis cherubim, et flammeum gladium, atque versatilem, ad custodiendam viam ligni vitæ.
[1] ‘And charmed the eye’; the Hebrew words are sometimes taken as meaning ‘and gave desirable knowledge’.
[2] For ‘she’ and ‘her’ the Septuagint Greek has ‘he’ and ‘his’; the Hebrew text also, as it has come down to us, gives ‘he’, or perhaps ‘it’. But most manuscripts of the Latin version have ‘she’, which plainly gives a better balance to the sentence. That the reference of this passage, in any case, is to the Incarnation, is the general opinion of the Fathers. The Latin here assumes that there is a play upon words in the original, since there are two Hebrew verbs closely alike, one of which means ‘to crush’, and the other ‘to follow eagerly’. But the Hebrew text has ‘to crush’ in both clauses; the Septuagint Greek, in both clauses, has ‘to lie in wait’.