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Genesis 3

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1 And the serpent was more· cunning ·than any wild·​·animal of the field which Jehovah God had made; and he said to the woman, Yea, has God said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2 And the woman said to the serpent, Of the fruit of the tree of the garden we may eat;

3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

4 And the serpent said to the woman: Dying you shall· not ·die.

5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil.

6 And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was appealing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable to make· one ·intelligent, and she took from its fruit and did eat, and she gave also to her man with her, and he did eat.

7 And the eyes of the two of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made girdles for themselves.

8 And they heard the voice of Jehovah God going to itself in the garden in the wind of the day; and man and his wife hid·​·themselves from the face of Jehovah God in the midst of the tree of the garden.

9 And Jehovah God called to man, and said to him, Where art thou?

10 And he said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I feared, for I was naked; and I hid·​·myself.

11 And He said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee not to eat?

12 And man said, The woman whom Thou gavest to be with·​·me, she gave to me from the tree, and I ate.

13 And Jehovah God said to the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.

14 And Jehovah God said to the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed more·​·than every beast, and more·​·than every wild·​·animal of the field; on thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; He shall injure* thy head, and thou shalt injure His heel.

16 And to the woman He said, Multiplying I will multiply thy grief and thy conception; in grief thou shalt bring·​·forth sons, and thy desire* shall be to thy man, and he shall rule over thee.

17 And to man He said, Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten from the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat from it; cursed is the ground on account of thee; in great grief shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.

18 And the thorn and the thistle it shall make grow for thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.

19 By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread, until thou return to the ground; for out·​·of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return.

20 And man called the name of his wife Eve*, for she was the mother of all the living*.

21 And Jehovah God made for man and for his wife tunics of skin, and clothed them.

22 And Jehovah God said, Behold, man was as one of us*, knowing good and evil; and now lest he put·​·forth his hand, and take also of the tree of lives, and eat, and live to eternity

23 and Jehovah God sent· him ·out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.

24 And He drove·​·out man; and He caused cherubim to abide from the east toward the garden of Eden, and the flame of the sword turning itself, to keep the way of the tree of lives.

   


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

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Two

  

The number "two" has two different meanings in the Bible. In most cases "two" indicates a joining together or unification. This is easy to see if we consider the conflicts we tend to have between our "hearts" and our "heads" -- between what we want and what we know. Our "hearts" tell us that we want pie with ice cream for dinner; our "heads" tell us we should have grilled chicken and salad. If we can bring those two together and actually want what's good for us, we'll be pretty happy. We're built that way -- with our emotions balanced against our intellect -- because the Lord is built that way. His essence is love itself, or Divine Love, the source of all caring, emotion and energy. It is expressed as Divine Wisdom, which gives form to that love and puts it to work, and is the source of all knowledge and reasoning. In His case the two aspects are always in conjunction, always in harmony. It's easy also to see how that duality is reflected throughout creation: plants and animals, food and drink, silver and gold. Most importantly, it's reflected in the two genders, with women representing love and men representing wisdom. That's the underlying reason why conjunction in marriage is such a holy thing. So when "two" is used in the Bible to indicate some sort of pairing or unity, it means a joining together. In rare cases, however, "two" is used more purely as a number. In these cases it stands for a profane or unholy state that comes before a holy one. This is because "three" represents a state of holiness and completion (Jesus, for instance, rose from the tomb on the third day), and "two" represents the state just before it.