The punishment pronounced by God consequent on the sin of Adam and Eve. Man was not cursed; but the curse fell on the serpent and on the ground: in sorrow man was to eat of the fruit of the ground all the days of his life, and in sorrow was the woman to bring forth children. Ge 3:17. After the flood, the Lord smelled a sweet savour from Noah's sacrifice, and said in His heart, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." Ge 8:21. A new economy of the heaven and earth had begun, and God would not again curse; but acted in it according to the sweet savour of Noah's sacrifice. Man was encouraged; the seasons should continue as long as the earth remained. Ge 8:22. God made a covenant with Noah and his seed, and with every living creature, and as a token thereof He set the bow in the cloud. Ge 9:8-17.

The whole creation is made subject to vanity, and groans and travails in pain for deliverance. Ro 8:20-22. Deliverance is certain. Thorns and briers were the proof of a curse, Isa 32:13; but a time is coming when "instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree." Isa 55:13. The weak and the strong of the animal world shall also dwell happily together in the millennium. Isa 11:6-9. In a higher sense Christ has redeemed Jewish believers from the curse of the law, being made a curse for them, for cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree. Ga 3:13.