Book of Jasher, Chapter 1 — The Creation of Adam and Eve; the Fall; Cain Slays Abel and Is Cursed
1And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and God created man in his own image.
2And God formed man from the ground, and he blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul endowed with speech.
3And the Lord said, It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helper suited to him.
4And the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took away one of his ribs, and he built flesh upon it, and formed it and brought it to Adam; and Adam awoke from his sleep, and behold, a woman was standing before him.
5And he said, This is bone of my bones, and she shall be called woman, for this one was taken from man; and Adam called her name Eve, for she was the mother of all living.
6And God blessed them, and called their names Adam and Eve in the day that he created them; and the Lord God said, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
7And the Lord God took Adam and his wife and placed them in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it; and he commanded them, saying, From every tree of the garden you may eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.
8And when God had blessed and commanded them, he went from them; and Adam and his wife dwelt in the garden according to the command the Lord had given them.
9And the serpent, which God had created with them in the earth, came to them, to entice them to transgress the command of God which he had commanded them.
10And the serpent enticed and persuaded the woman to eat from the tree of knowledge; and the woman listened to the voice of the serpent, and she transgressed the word of God: she took from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and ate, and she took from it and gave also to her husband, and he ate.
11And Adam and his wife transgressed the command of God which he had commanded them; and God knew it, and his anger was kindled against them, and he cursed them.
12And the Lord God drove them out that day from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which they were taken; and they went and dwelt at the east of the garden of Eden. And Adam knew his wife Eve, and she bore two sons and three daughters.
13And she called the name of the firstborn Cain, saying, I have obtained a man from the Lord; and the name of the other she called Abel, for she said, In vanity we came into the earth, and in vanity we shall be taken from it.
14And the boys grew up, and their father gave them a possession in the land; and Cain was a tiller of the ground, and Abel a keeper of sheep.
15And at the end of a few years, they brought an offering of approach to the Lord; and Cain brought from the fruit of the ground, and Abel brought from the firstborn of his flock, from their fat portions; and God turned and inclined to Abel and his offering, and a fire came down from the Lord from heaven and consumed it.
16But to Cain and his offering the Lord did not turn, and he did not incline to it, for he had brought from the inferior fruit of the ground before the Lord; and Cain was jealous of his brother Abel on account of this, and he sought a pretext to kill him.
17And some time later, Cain and Abel his brother went out one day into the field to do their work; and they were both in the field — Cain tilling and plowing his ground, and Abel feeding his flock — and the flock passed over the part that Cain had plowed, and it grieved Cain deeply.
18And Cain approached his brother Abel in anger and said to him, What is there between me and you, that you come to dwell here and bring your flock to feed on my land?
19And Abel answered his brother Cain and said to him, What is there between me and you, that you eat the flesh of my flock and clothe yourself with their wool?
20Now therefore, take off the wool of my sheep with which you have clothed yourself, and repay me for their fruit and their flesh which you have eaten; and when you have done this, I will go from your land, as you have said.
21And Cain said to his brother Abel, Surely if I kill you this day, who will require your blood from me?
22And Abel answered Cain, saying, Surely God, who made us in the earth — he will avenge my cause, and he will require my blood from you if you kill me; for the Lord is the judge and arbiter, and it is he who repays a man according to his evil, and the wicked man according to the wickedness he does upon the earth.
23And now, if you kill me here, surely God knows your secret thoughts, and will judge you for the evil you have declared you would do to me this day.
24And when Cain heard the words his brother Abel had spoken, behold, the anger of Cain was kindled against his brother Abel for saying this.
25And Cain hurried and rose up and took the iron part of his plowing instrument, and with it he suddenly struck his brother, and he killed him; and Cain spilled the blood of his brother Abel upon the earth, and the blood of Abel streamed upon the earth before the flock.
26And afterward Cain was sorry that he had killed his brother, and he was sorely grieved, and he wept over him, and it troubled him exceedingly.
27And Cain rose up and dug a hole in the field, and he put his brother's body in it, and turned the dust over it.
28And the Lord knew what Cain had done to his brother; and the Lord appeared to Cain and said to him, Where is Abel your brother, who was with you?
29And Cain lied, and said, I do not know — am I my brother's keeper? And the Lord said to him, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground where you killed him.
30For you killed your brother, and lied before me, and imagined in your heart that I did not see you, and did not know all your deeds.
31But you did this thing, and killed your brother for nothing — because he spoke rightly to you. And now, therefore, cursed are you from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand, and in which you buried him.
32And when you till it, it shall no longer give you its strength as in the beginning, for thorns and thistles the ground shall produce for you; and you shall be moving and wandering in the earth until the day of your death.
33And at that time Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, from the place where he was; and he went moving and wandering in the land toward the east of Eden, he and all who belonged to him.
34And Cain knew his wife in those days, and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Enoch, saying, In that time the Lord began to give him rest and quiet in the earth.
35And at that time Cain also began to build a city; and he built the city and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son, for in those days the Lord had given him rest upon the earth, and he did not move about and wander as in the beginning.
36And Irad was born to Enoch; and Irad fathered Mechuyael, and Mechuyael fathered Methusael.