In order to understand this scripture lesson, it is of utmost importance that we put it in its context. Last Sunday we heard the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where they tried to shake off their dependence and relationship with God and to become their own deities and masters of their own lives. That attempt was symbolized by their eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden. And you remember that we said that story was the symbol of the way we all have walked with our God. We all have tried to make God unnecessary and to be our own gods and goddesses.

The stories that follow the account of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3-11, then portray the spread of our sin among all humankind and God’s increasingly severe judgment on that wrong.…