Adã, Eba ore chó Dupade iroquéode gai
Adam and Eve Disobeyed God
God said that Adam and Eve should not eat the fruit from one tree in the garden:
God said to them: “Adam and Eve, you may eat everything in this garden of mine. And you should take care of everything in it.”
God’s Word says that in the beginning all the animals were tame. Some of the animals were just like they are today. The Bible tells us that God made all kinds of animals. And all of them were tame in the beginning and none of them were wild when Adam and Eve were still in the garden. Even the snakes were tame. The jaguars were tame. None of the animals were wild. All were tame.
God said to Adam and Eve: “Eat from my garden and from all the trees in it. There is only one tree from which I forbid you to eat. Don’t eat its fruit at all. Pay attention: the day that you eat the forbidden fruit, you will die.”
God said this because he wanted to find out if Adam and Eve recognized that he was all-powerful and were going to be obedient to him and do what he said to do and not touch the fruit.
We know from the Bible that Adam and Eve had not yet sinned in the beginning. God had forbidden sin to come into the world. He didn’t want them to sin, because if they did, they would be ashamed before him.
God wanted Adam and Eve to obey him and to listen to him. And especially that they would believe in him. And that is why God said these things to Adam and Eve so that he could see if they would be obedient and do what he asked them to do.
That is why God said to Adam and Eve: “Don’t eat the fruit of that tree. The day that you eat its fruit, you will die.”
Up till that time death was unknown to Adam and Eve. That is why God said to Adam, those first ones he had made: “Don’t eat the fruit from the tree that I have forbidden to you. You will die if you eat its fruit.”
Our mother, the very first woman, did what Satan told her to do:
After saying those things to them, God’s word tells us that God never missed visiting the first man and woman, our forefathers Adam and Eve. Every single day he would check on them. God would be in their presence and they would see God with their very own eyes.
But then, one day Adam’s wife Eve noticed how shady it was beneath that tree. And then this is what happened: When Eve was in the shade of the tree and enjoying it, she noticed its fruit. And then, she heard someone speak and she looked toward the voice and it was coming from a snake. It was speaking to her. And it said to Eve, the very first woman: “Why don’t you eat some of that tree’s fruit?”
But Eve said: “I won’t eat it!”
And the snake said: “Why won’t you eat it?”
And the woman said: “I won’t eat it because God said not to. God told us that if we ate the fruit of that tree, the one from which God forbade us to eat, that we would die. He said that death would enter us.”
And the snake said: “God is a liar, claiming that you will die. Even if you should eat this tree’s fruit, you wouldn’t die.”
But God’s Word tell us who the snake really was – he was the devil – he was in possession of the snake. The devil, Satan, was using the snake’s mouth and speaking through him. He used the snake to deceive that woman. And the snake said: “God just doesn’t want you to eat it. He’s lying about your dying if you eat it. There’s no way it will make you die,” the snake said. “God is forbidding you the fruit of that tree for he knows that if you would eat that tree’s fruit you would become just like Him, and you would know good things, and evil things just like God knows about all these things. So if you eat this fruit you will know about everything. Therefore, God forbids you to know what he knows, and that is why he is forbidding you to eat the fruit of that tree.”
“God is just lying to you,” the snake said. But it was really the devil talking because he wanted to deceive Eve. And then it was that Eve, our mother, that very first woman, did what he told her to do. And this is what the devil said when he deceived her: “Eat it. Just try it. And you will know wonderful things.”
So Eve did exactly what he told her to do and she picked fruit from the tree and she took a bite from it. And then she gave some to her husband also. And Adam took a bite of it, too. And then it was that they remembered why God had not wanted them to eat from that tree. They remembered that God had forbidden it to them, and they didn’t know what they were going to say to God about what they had done. For now they had eaten what he had forbidden them to eat – the fruit from the tree.
For this is what God had said to them: “Don’t eat from it. You can eat everything else in my garden, but don’t eat the fruit from that tree.”
But now Eve had already eaten fruit from that tree. And she had given some to her husband, so both had eaten of it, and they were ashamed of what they’d done, and they didn’t want to meet up with God. They were afraid of what God would do now that they had disobeyed him. Their disobedience caused them to be ashamed. They had not obeyed God at all, so now they dreaded seeing him.
They didn’t know what to say when they met up with him since they had eaten the forbidden fruit. And that is what God’s word says about the day that the devil deceived Eve and her husband. And that very day shame entered them. And that was the day that sin entered this world. Sin came into the world through our forefathers from whom we have all descended.
And sin is still in this world, and these are the things it has brought to us humans: shame, anger, deceit. And all these things appeared long ago on that very day that our forefathers ate the fruit of the tree that God had forbidden to them. And now they had a big problem, they didn’t know what to do about meeting up with God for he always came to see them every day.
The first thing they thought to do was to hide from him. The Bible tells us that the first people were naked -both the man and the woman but they were not embarrassed to be naked. That was because sin and shame had not yet entered the world – and they gave no thought to being naked – and they knew nothing about deceiving or being deceived. But when they ate God’s forbidden fruit then it was that they knew they were naked and they were embarrassed about it and didn’t want God to see them naked. Right away they got some large leaves and began sewing them together to cover themselves. And then they looked for a way to hide from God, so he wouldn’t see them.
God came to them in the late afternoon, but they had hidden themselves.
The Bible explains that God knew where they were, but he called to them. He had come to his garden, and didn’t see them before him, because they had hidden from him.
At first, they didn’t answer his calls. And they didn’t come to God like they usually did each time God would come to check on them. This time they were ashamed and afraid of seeing him, so they didn’t say anything when he called them. They didn’t come to him, but finally the young man presented himself to God.
And then God said to the first man: “Where were you, and why didn’t you answer me?”
But the young man, the first man, said to God: “I was over there.”
But God said to him: “Why are you ashamed? I think you must have eaten fruit from the tree from which I forbade you to eat. I said: “Don’t eat it!”
Then the young man said: “That woman that you gave me, well, she ate that fruit first and then she gave some to me, and I ate it too, but it was because of that woman you made for me.”
And then they started blaming each other. The young man blamed the woman because she ate the fruit first. So God asked the woman: “Why did you eat the fruit? You ate it even though you heard me say, ‘Don’t eat the fruit from that tree or you will die.’”
But the woman said to God, “It was the devil that deceived me and that is why I ate the fruit from that tree. The devil just kept on tempting me until I finally ate the fruit.”
They blamed each other. They were still innocent in the beginning, but Satan deceived them and then it was that they learned from him all about deceiving and blaming others for things. And that is why God then punished them. And that is why God’s punishment affects us also just as it did the first people that God made, up to this very day. God said to Adam: “You didn’t do what I asked you to do. Because you disobeyed me and ate the fruit from that tree, harmful plants will come up all over this earth. From now on you won’t have free access to food. But you will have to work hard to make things grow to have food to eat. You will work so hard that your forehead will sweat. And only then will you have food to eat. And you will have to fight the harmful weeds that want to choke out your plants.”
Thorny plants will come up all over the world.
Comai – Zapoco, Bolivia – 1960
Transcribed and translated to English by: Maxine Morarie
