Last time in Bible Understanding, God's attention was turned to the serpent after he had slithered his way up to the humans and sneakily deceived them out of their garden splendour by convincing them that they would be like God if they ate the forbidden fruit. The humans fell into his snaky trap and God has something to say to him in the form of a curse: "Because you have done this", "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life, and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." God isn't done with His cursing and it is to the woman he next turns: "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing, with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." It is interesting to note that God cursed the woman with an increase in childbearing pain-the suggestion I make is that she was in a position to bear children painlessly before the breaking of Gods command. Easy living with food and physical freedom and pleasure is replaced with enmity between the snake and the woman, the woman and the man, and ultimately, between the woman and God. God isn't done with the commandment breakers and He turns to the man with this statement and resultant curse: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you. 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorn and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." Heavy penalties were extended for breaking the one and only commandment God had for the beings He created. Childbearing is still painful, land is cleared with great toil and you and I, when we die, we simply disintegrate and disappear, like we never were. Indeed, the curse of death, as promised, was and is the ultimate penalty for disobeying a creative and benevolent God...the snake, he too is held accountable for his deceptions and there is foreshadowing in Gods curses and a whisper of what to look for in the future. Exciting captivating intrigue, more next time, in Bible Understanding.