THE SERPENT TEMPTS THE WOMAN TO EAT OF THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT, AND SHE TEMPTS HER HUSBAND. ADAM AND HIS WIFE ARE DRIVEN OUT OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN. CAIN AND ABEL ARE BORN. THEY BRING OFFERINGS TO GOD. CAIN KILLS ABEL. ENOCH AND METHUSELAH.
NOW there was a serpent in the garden of Eden. And the -IN serpent spoke to the woman, yet not of itself; but Satan, that wicked Spirit who comes into our hearts and tempts us to sin, went into the serpent and tempted the woman to sin. The serpent asked her, Has God said you shall not eat of every tree in the garden? The woman answered that they might eat of all the trees except one, but of it God had commanded them not to eat, lest they should die. Then the serpent told her they should not die, and that God had forbidden them to eat of the tree because it would make them wise.
The woman listened to what the serpent said, and when she saw that the tree was beautiful to look at, and that the fruit seemed good to eat, and remembered that the serpent had said it would make her wise, she took some of the fruit and did eat of it, and gave also to her husband and he did eat.
After they had eaten, they heard a voice in the garden; they knew it was God's voice, yet they did not come when they heard it. They were afraid, and hid themselves among the trees. But God spoke again, and called to Adam, saying, Where art thou? Adam Adam answered, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, and hid myself. The Lord said, Hast thou eaten of the tree I commanded thee not to eat of? Then Adam beg-an to make excuse and blame the woman; he said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the fruit, and I did eat. And God said to the woman, What is this that thou hast done? The woman answered, The serpent deceived me, and I did eat.
And God was angry with Adam and the woman, and with the serpent. The serpent, he said, should be punished by having to crawl on the ground, with its mouth in the dust, all the days of its life. He told the woman also, she should have sickness and sorrow. And God drove Adam and his wife out of the beautiful garden, and would let them live there no longer. And he sent angels that kept watch, and a fiery sword that turned every way, to prevent them from going into the garden again. And to Adam God said, that because he had listened to his wife's voice, and eaten of the tree which the Lord commanded him not to eat of, the ground should not any more bear fruit for him by itself, and without his labor, as it used to do in the garden of Eden, but it should send up thorns and thistles. And Adam would have to work very hard, as long as he lived, to raise food to cat; and when he should die, God said, his body would go back to dust again, like the dust out of which the Lord had made him.
Yet God prepared a way for Adam and his wife to be saved from any more punishment after they should be dead. They could not be saved from sorrow and trouble while they were living in this world, but after they should die, and their souls should go into the next world, God prepared a way for them not to be punished there. And this was the way: He promised to send a Saviour who would be punished in their place; so that, if Adam and his wife repented of their sin and believed in that Saviour, they would be forgiven, and, after they died, taken up to heaven, where they would be as happy as if they had never sinned at all. And this Saviour was not to be punished for them alone, but for their children also. For since Adam and his wife had sinned and made their own hearts wicked, their children would have wicked hearts too; because children must be of the same nature as their parents.
Adam gave his wife a name; he called her Eve. And God made coats for them out of the skins of animals.
After they had been driven out of the garden of Eden, God gave Adam and Eve two sons; the elder one was named Cain, the younger one Abel. When they grew up to be men, Cain was a farmer or gardener; Abel was a shepherd. And they both had wicked hearts, like their parents, which often caused them to sin. But Abel repented of his sins, and believed the promise which God had made to send a Saviour. And one day he brought a lamb from his flock and offered it to God. The way he offered it was to kill it first, and then burn it on an altar. An altar was a pile of stones, or earth, with a flat top, heaped up as high as a table. He put some wood on this altar, all cut and ready to burn; then laid the lamb, after it was killed, on the wood; next he set fire to the wood, and that burned up the lamb, so there was nothing left on the altar but ashes.
God was pleased that Abel should worship him in this way, because the lamb that he brought was like the Saviour that God had promised. It was gentle and patient, and innocent, like him; and when Abel killed it, and offered it on the altar, it seemed like that Saviour who was coming, after many years, to die for his sins. The lamb meant the Saviour, or represented him, and therefore God was pleased with Abel and his offering.
But Cain did not repent of his sins, nor believe God's promise to send a Saviour; and when he brought his offering it was not a lamb, but some fruit, or grain, taken out of the field, or from the trees of his garden; and God was not pleased with Cain or his offering. When Cain saw this, he was angry, and showed plainly, by his looks, that he was angry with God. Yet God spoke kindly to him, and asked why he was angry. If Cain did right, God said, he would be pleased with him: and if he did not do right, the fault was his own.
And Cain hated Abel, because God was pleased with Abel's offering but not with his. And one day when they were out in the field together, he rose up and killed him; and the blood ran out of Abel's wounds and sank into the ground. After Cain had done this, God spoke to him, and said, Where is Abel, thy brother? Cain answered, I know not: am I my brother's keeper? Yet God saw all that Cain had done, and now, he said, as a punishment for killing Abel, Cain should be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; that is, he should flee about the earth from one place to another, as a person who was always afraid, and who had no home to stay in.
God said, also, that when Cain planted anything out in the field, to bear food, it should not grow well. It would die, or briars and weeds would come up and choke it, or it would bear leaves, but no fruit; so that Cain would have hardly enough to eat. Then Cain said, that as God had driven him away and would no longer take care of him, every one who should meet him would want to kill him. But God said that whoever should kill Cain, would be punished with a very dreadful punishment; for God chose to punish Cain himself, and not that any man should punish him.
And God set a mark on Cain. We are not told what sort of a mark it was, but it was something which other people could sec; and when they saw it, they knew Cain, and remembered God's command that no one should kill him.
Adam lived a great many years after this, and God gave him other children beside Cain and Abel. But when he was nine hundred and thirty years old he died, and his body went to dust again, as God said it should when he ate of the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden. Nine hundred and thirty years was a very long time for a man to live, but God allowed men to live much longer then than they do now.
And Adam died, and his children, but their children lived still. We are told the names of some of the men who lived in those days. One of them was called Enoch. The Bible says of him that he walked with God. This means that he loved God, and remembered him all the time, as if he had been walking beside him, with his hand in his, listening to what God said, and trying to please and obey him in every thing he did.
After Enoch had lived three hundred and sixty-five years, God did a wonderful thing for him; he took him up to heaven while he was alive. Enoch did not die like other men; but God took him up without his dying, just as if he were to take up one of us now.
Enoch had a son named Methuselah, who, when he died, was nine hundred and sixty-nine years old. We are not told of any other man as old as this; therefore Methuselah is called the oldest man that ever lived.