Thorns

^Thorns
15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, ¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” ~Genesis 2

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”

² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. ³ But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’”

⁴ “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶ Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ And he said, “I heard You in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

¹¹ Then He asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

¹² Then the man replied, “The woman You gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”

¹³ So the Lord God asked the woman, “What is this you have done?”

And the woman said, “It was the serpent. He deceived me, and I ate.”

¹⁴ Then the Lord God said to the serpent:

Because you have done this,
you are cursed more than any livestock
and more than any wild animal.
You will move on your belly
and eat dust all the days of your life.
¹⁵ I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.

¹⁶ He said to the woman:

I will intensify your labor pains;
you will bear children in anguish.
Your desire will be for your husband,
yet he will rule over you.

¹⁷ And He said to Adam, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’:

The ground is cursed because of you.
You will eat from it by means of painful labor
all the days of your life.
¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow
until you return to the ground,
since you were taken from it.
For you are dust,
and you will return to dust.” ~Genesis 3

¹² Pilate asked them again, “Then what do you want me to do with the One you call the King of the Jews?”

¹³ Again they shouted, “Crucify Him!”

¹⁴ Then Pilate said to them, “Why? What has He done wrong?”

But they shouted, “Crucify Him!” all the more.

¹⁵ Then, willing to gratify the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. And after having Jesus flogged, he handed Him over to be crucified.

¹⁶ Then the soldiers led Him away into the courtyard (that is, headquarters) and called the whole company together. ¹⁷ They dressed Him in a purple robe, twisted together a crown of thorns, and put it on Him. ¹⁸ And they began to salute Him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” ¹⁹ They kept hitting Him on the head with a reed and spitting on Him. Getting down on their knees, they were paying Him homage. ²⁰ When they had mocked Him, they stripped Him of the purple robe, put His clothes on Him, and led Him out to crucify Him. ~Matthew 15

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us ~Galatians 3