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⁴In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, ⁵when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no vegetation of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground, ⁶but a stream would rise from the earth and water the whole face of the ground—⁷then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. ⁸And the man called out to the LORD God and said, “God! God! Can I have something besides mud to live in?” And so the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. ⁹Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. “God! God!” The man called out again. The LORD God was glad to hear the voice of the mortal, and heeded his call. “This fruit is really delicious,” the man said, and the LORD God ignored the fact that the man had not yet learned to chew with his mouth closed.

¹⁰And the LORD God took a short break from spending time with the man by dividing the river that flowed out of Eden into four branches. ¹¹There will not be a quiz on this later, but the first branch is named Pishon; it flows around the land of Havilah, where there is gold, ¹²and resin that smells good and onyx. ¹³The second river is named Gihon; it is the one that flows around the land of Cush. ¹⁴The third and fourth ones you’ve definitely heard of: the Tigris and Euphrates. But again, there won’t be a quiz. 

¹⁵The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. “God! God!” called the man. “What does tilling involve? Do I need tools for that? What sort of pruning schedule should I follow to maximize fruit harvests?” ¹⁶The LORD God created the sigh in that exact moment, but the LORD God acknowledged the man had a point. ¹⁷So the LORD God taught the man about agriculture and basic tool-making. Only when evening came did the LORD God realize that in addition to creating the sigh, the LORD God had also created annoyance.

¹⁸Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone. Perhaps he will call upon me less if he has friends.” ¹⁹So the next day, out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰The LORD God had to intervene when the man attempted to name the camel Frank, but otherwise it went smoothly and the LORD God only had to reason with the man for half a day to get him to agree that camel was better. ²¹One day passed, and the LORD God looked upon the garden and saw that it was good.

²²“God! God!” called the man at dawn the next day. The LORD God took the LORD God’s time responding, because it was early, and the LORD God’s hands were still sore from making all of the animals. “God!” called the man again, and the LORD God inquired what the man needed now. ²³“I had trouble sleeping last night because the owls were hooting and the foxes were yipping,” the man said. “And now the tiger is staring at me.”

²⁴The LORD God heaved a deep sigh and caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man so that the LORD God could have a moment to think in peace. ²⁵And the LORD God decided that the man needed a companion just like him so that they could talk to each other and leave the LORD God alone for just two seconds. And so ²⁶the LORD God took a rib from the man and closed up the place with flesh, and ²⁷made the ²⁸rib into a ²⁹woman and brought her to the man.

³⁰Then the man said, “God! God! I really like her—it’s like you took my bones and flesh and made me again but different!” ³¹The LORD God was pleased and hoped that the fact that they were both naked and not embarrassed about it would keep them busy for a while.

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¹Now the next morning, the LORD God heard the voice of the man, calling, “God! God!” And the LORD God groaned, invented coffee, drank a cup, and then went to speak to the man. ²“God!” said the man, and the LORD God regretted creating exclamation marks, “Let me tell you everything I like about the woman!” And the LORD God ³sat there listening to the man describe the woman in detail, as if the LORD God had not created the woman just a day ago, and the LORD God did not require this level of detail about what the man and woman had figured out they could do with each other while being unashamed of their nakedness. ⁴And while the man created metaphors to describe the woman’s breasts—the LORD God was unsure if the woman would like her breasts to be compared to twin fawns—the LORD God made a decision.

⁵The LORD God first planted a new tree in the garden in a very conspicuous place, and then formed the serpent out of the earth to be more crafty than any other wild creature the LORD God had made. The LORD God also gave the serpent legs, which the serpent seemed to merely tolerate. And the LORD God placed the serpent in ⁶a small clump of bushes near where the man and the woman were resting after inventing yet more ways to use their nakedness. ⁷And the LORD God spoke to the man and the woman, commanding them, “You may eat freely of every tree in the garden, except for this new tree that I planted, which is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don’t ask questions. Just trust me: if you eat of that tree you shall die.” And the ⁸serpent, knowing a hint when it heard one, crept away and waited for its moment.

⁹The serpent waited until one day, when the man had called out, “God! God!” at least twenty times before the sun reached its peak in the sky, it made its way to the woman. It said ¹⁰to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman, ¹¹picking at a pomegranate, gave the snake a look. “No, God said we could eat of any tree of the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you know, that tree right in the middle of the garden that stands out because there’s nothing else planted around it.” She ate a little more of the pomegranate. “We’ll die if we eat it,” she added, although she wasn’t sure what death was; ¹²the LORD God had not explained death. ¹³The serpent said to the woman, “You will not die, ¹⁴for God knows that the day you eat of the tree’s fruit your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good from evil.”

¹⁵The woman gave the serpent a long look and the serpent winked at her. The man, who had been there the whole time, ¹⁶said, “The fruit on that tree does look good, and if we know as much as God, then I can talk to God even more than I do now!” The woman turned and looked at the man and said, ¹⁷“We just met this serpent.” ¹⁸And the serpent did its best to look innocent. But the man persisted, ¹⁹and he coaxed the woman to take a bite of the tree’s fruit just to make sure it was good to eat and not poisonous. And when she didn’t turn blue and fall over foaming at the mouth, ²⁰the man also ate of the fruit.

²¹“Oh shit,” said the man, “I’m naked and I feel weird about it” just as he and the woman heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden. They hid themselves among the trees. The LORD God, who had ²²been keeping an eye on things and definitely knew what the LORD God’s-self was doing, called out to the man and the woman, “Where are you?”

²³The man stuck his head out from behind a tree trunk and said, “I heard the sound of you walking in the garden and I hid because I’m naked, and you never told me how embarrassing that was.” ²⁴The LORD God created the high five in the LORD God’s head but decided to save a physical demonstration for later, and the LORD God said to the man, ²⁵“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat?” 

²⁶The man said, “The woman made me do it,” and the LORD God was disappointed in the man, a new feeling for the LORD God to have. It was, ²⁷at least, different from annoyance. ²⁸But then the woman blamed the serpent, which, fair, because the LORD God had created the serpent for this exact purpose. The LORD God was still disappointed, however, because new emotions took time to adjust to. 

²⁹The LORD God said to the serpent,

³⁰“Because you have done this,

I am taking your legs away,

and people are going to hate you.”

³¹The serpent flicked its tongue at the LORD God, and the LORD God saw that the serpent was pleased. And ³²the LORD God spoke to the man and the woman and said,

“Because you have disobeyed

my very clear instructions,

³³you don’t get direct access to me anymore.

You don’t get to live here either,

³⁴because this is where I like to spend my time.

Don’t worry too much, though. You can 

create religion as a way to stay in touch.”

³⁵And the LORD God created tailoring and made the man and the woman clothes out of skins, which necessitated the creation of skinning as well, which the man and the woman found upsetting, and sent them away from the garden. ³⁶And then the LORD God turned to the serpent and said, “Before I take your legs away, I want to practice something I created earlier.” ³⁷And the LORD God and the serpent high fived each other, and it was good.