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Ken and Amy pulled the weeds in the flower garden.

"Ouch! Ouch!" cried . "This one has sharp thorns . It scratched my hand!"

hated the flower garden. He grumbled, and when he thought that no one was looking, he pulled up some flowers.

Just then Father came out of the house. "Keep working," said . "The flower garden will be beautiful."

"I am hot and tired," said . "My hand hurts, and I am not happy."

"Come," said , "I will tell you about a garden that had no and no . It was the most beautiful garden in all the world!"

" Himself planted this garden. put Adam and Eve in this garden. told them that they could eat the fruit from every tree except from one special tree. told them that if they disobeyed Him and ate the fruit of that tree, they would die.

" were so happy in this beautiful garden! They had everything they needed. They were never sick or sad, and they were never bad. In the evening came down to walk and talk with them. This was the best thing of all.

" was pleased with His beautiful world. He looked at everything that He had created and saw that it was very good.

"But now many things are not beautiful anymore. There is sin and death in the world, and people do bad things."

thought about the flowers that he had pulled out of the garden. "I was bad," said . "What makes me do bad things?"

"It is all because of ," said . " came into God's wonderful world and spoiled it."

"But where did come from?" asked .

"The Bible tells us how it happened," said . " has a great enemy. His name is Satan. He is our enemy too. Satan hates . He will not obey . Satan wants everybody to hate and disobey Him.

"Satan saw the beautiful garden that had made. He also saw , and he knew that they were God's most wonderful creation.

"Satan said to himself, 'I will trick so they will disobey . That will spoil God's beautiful world.'"

"How did Satan do that?" asked .

"Satan came to Eve as a serpent and said to her, 'You will not die if you eat that special fruit. Instead you will be like .'

"This was a lie, but believed Satan. She took the fruit of the special tree and ate it. Then she gave some of that fruit to , and he ate it also. disobeyed!"

"What happened then?" asked .

"Well," said , "instead of having in their hearts, they now had in their hearts. And instead of being like , they became sinners!

"Satan was glad because he wanted to be sinners like him. But were sad, and was very sad. It was a sad, sad day.

" now had in their hearts.

"When came down to walk and talk with , they hid from Him. They were afraid of because they knew they had done wrong.

" is a terrible thing! Because had sinned, they had to leave the beautiful garden which had planted for them. They could no longer live with . When had children, their children had in their hearts, just like their parents.

"Ever since that time, every person is born with in his or her heart. This is why we do wrong things."

"Is that why I pulled out the flowers?" asked .

"Yes," said . "We all have done wrong things. The says, 'For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of .'"

"Did stop loving because they disobeyed Him?" asked.

"No," said . " still loved , and He promised them that one day He would send a Savior into the world. sent the Lord Jesus to be our Savior, and some day everything will be beautiful and wonderful again."

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Learn this verse so you can say it:

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