1 Now the serpent was more skilled in evil than all the beasts of the field which the Lord God had made And he said to the woman, “Is it true that the Lord God said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We are allowed to eat of the fruit of the other trees of the garden 3 but of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden the Lord said, ‘You shall not eat of it and you shall not touch it, lest you die’” 4 At that moment the serpent spoke slander against his creator and said to the woman, “You shall not die But every craftsman hates his fellow craftsman 5 For it is manifest before the Lord that on the day on which you eat of it you shall be like the great angels who are able to distinguish good from evil”⁠a 6 And the woman saw Sammael the angel of death and she was afraid She knew that the tree was good to eat, that it was a cure for the light of the eyes, and that the tree was desirable as a source of wisdom And she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave to her husband who was with her, and he ate 7 Then the eyes of both of them were enlightened and they knew that they were naked because they were stripped of the clothing of fingernails in which they had been created, and they saw their shame and they sewed fig leaves for themselves, and they made girdles for themselves 8 They heard the voice of the Memra of the Lord God strolling in the garden at the decline of the day; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from before the Lord God in the midst of the trees in the garden 9 The Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Is not the whole world which I created manifest before me, the darkness as well as the light How then do you imagine in your heart that you can hide yourself from before me Do I not see the place where you are hiding And where are the commandments that I commanded you”⁠b 10 He said, “I heard the voice of your Memra in the garden and I was afraid, for I was naked, because I neglected the commandment you gave me, and I hid myself for shame” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked Perhaps you have eaten of the fruit of the tree from which I commanded you not to eat” 12 And Adam said, “The woman you put beside me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree, and I ate” 13 The Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done” And the woman said, “The serpent lured me with his cleverness and led me astray in his wickedness, and I ate” 14 Then the Lord God brought the three of them to judgment, and he said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above all beasts of the field Upon your belly you shall go about, and your feet shall be cut off and you will cast off your skin once every seven years, and the poison of death will be in your mouth, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, between the offspring of your children and the offspring of her children And when the children of the woman keep the commandments of the Law, they will take aim and strike you on your head But when they forsake the commandments of the Law you will take aim and wound them on their heels For them, however, there will be a remedy; but for you there will be no remedy; and they are to make peace in the end, in the days of the King Messiah”⁠c 16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your affliction in the blood of virginity and in your pregnancies;⁠d in pain you shall bear children, yet your desire shall be for your husband; he shall rule over you both for righteousness and for sin” 17 And to Adam he said, “Because you listened to the word of your wife, and ate of the fruit of the tree concerning which I commanded you saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed be the earth because it did not show you your guilt; by toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life 18 Thorns and thistles it shall sprout and produce because of you; and you shall eat the plants that are upon the surface of the field” Adam answered and said, “I beseech by the mercy before you, O Lord Let me not be reckoned before you as cattle, that I should eat the grass of the surface of the field I will arise and labor with the labor of my hands, and I will eat of the food of the earth; and thus let there be a distinction before you between the children of men and the offspring of cattle”⁠e 19 By the labor of your hand you shall eat food until you return to the dust from which you were created, because dust you are, and to dust you will return; but from the dust you are destined to arise to render an account and a reckoning of all you have done, on the day of great judgment” 20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all human beings 21 And the Lord God made garments of glory for Adam and for his wife from the skin which the serpent had cast off to be worn on the skin of their flesh, instead of their garments of fingernails of which they had been stripped, and he clothed them 22 And the Lord God said to the angels who minister before him, “Behold, Adam was alone on the earth as I am alone in the heavens on high From him there will arise those who will know how to distinguish between good and evil If he had kept the commandments which I commanded him he would have lived and endured like the tree of life forever But now, since he has not observed what I commanded him, let us decree against him, and let us banish him from the Garden of Eden, before he puts forth his hand and takes also of the fruit of the tree of life For behold, if he eats of it, he will live and endure forever” 23 And the Lord God drove him out of the Garden of Eden, and he went and settled on Mount Moriah to till the soil from which he had been created 24 And he drove Adam out of the place where, from the beginning, he had caused the Glory of his Shekinah to dwell between the two cherubim Before he had yet created the world, he created the Law He established the garden of Eden for the righteous, that they might eat and take delight in the fruit of the tree, for having during their lives cherished the instruction of the Law in this world and fulfilled the precepts For the wicked he established Gehenna, which is like a sharp two-edged sword Within it he established sparks of fire and burning coals with which to judge the wicked, who during their lives rebelled against the instruction of the Law The Law is better for him who toils in it than the fruit of the tree of life, that Law which the Memra of the Lord established to be kept so that people might endure and walk in the paths of the way of life in the world to come