Genesis 3: Sin's Consequences

This passage summarizes the punishment Adam and Eve received for eating the forbidden fruit.


God was walking in the garden, sometime around evening, and when man and his wife hear Him, they hid themselves. God knew that the were there, so He calls out to them in verse 9 "Where are you?". Still hiding behind a tree, man cries back "I heard You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid". God knew that man ate fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, otherwise man would not realize he was naked or be ashamed of the fact.


God asks man if he ate fruit of the tree, and man immediately blames woman. God then turns to woman, but she immediately blames the serpent. At this point, man and woman should know that they have done something wrong, and disobeyed. But like children often do, they don't take responsibility for their actions, they simply point the blame to someone else. Man and woman think that by blaming someone else, they will not be punished for their actions. Instead, everyone was punished. 


The first to be punished was the serpent. In verse 14, the serpent is punished by now having to move around on its belly, where it will "eat dust all the days of [its] life."


Between man and woman, the punishment shown in verse 15 is God "will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed". They will constantly bicker and there will be little peace between not only man and woman, but any others that they produce. Therefore this punishment will be put on all of mankind to come.


In verse 16, God punishes woman by intensifying labor pains. Also, the husband will now have dominance over the wife.


In verse 17-18, he curses Adam by making him do painful labor in order get his food. It will no longer be provided for him as it was in the garden of Eden, but he will now how to work the fields in order to eat what is grown in the fields.


Verse 19 states "For you are dust, and you will return to dust". Because of Adam & Eve's great sin, we will all die. To ensure this, in verse 22-24, God banishes them from the garden of Eden, so that they won't eat from the tree of life, otherwise they will live forever.


This all may seem harsh, but God is very loving and forgiving. If He so wished it, He could kill them. But, God loved them so much that even after punishing them, in verse 21 "The LORD God made clothing out of skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them". Just like how parents get angry and scold their children, after the scolding, the parents still love their children and want to care for them.