Genesis 3:16

God tells the woman that sin will bring pain in childbearing and conflict into the marriage relationship. It shows how sin distorts even God's good gifts of family and partnership.

Cross-references · 28

• Titus 2:5to be self-controlled, pure, managers of their households, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be discredited.
• Col 3:18Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
• 1 Cor 11:3But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
• Eph 5:22–24Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
• 1 Tim 2:15Women, however, will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.
• 1 Cor 14:34Women are to be silent in the churches. They are not permitted to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.
• 1 Tim 2:11–12A woman must learn in quietness and full submissiveness.
• John 16:21A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come; but when she brings forth her child, she forgets her anguish because of her joy that a child has been born into the world.
• 1 Cor 7:4The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife.
• Gen 4:7If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you refuse to do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires you, but you must master it.”
• 1 Pet 3:1–6Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your husbands, so that even if they refuse to believe the word, they will be won over without words by the behavior of their wives
• Jer 6:24We have heard the report; our hands hang limp. Anguish has gripped us, pain like that of a woman in labor.
• Mic 4:9–10Why do you now cry aloud? Is there no king among you? Has your counselor perished so that anguish grips you like a woman in labor?
• Num 30:13Her husband may confirm or nullify any vow or any sworn pledge to deny herself.
• 1 Sam 4:19–21Now Eli’s daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and about to give birth. When she heard the news of the capture of God’s ark and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband, she collapsed and gave birth, for her labor pains overtook her.
• 1 Th 5:3While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
• Esth 1:20The edict the king issues will be heard throughout his vast kingdom—and so all women, from the least to the greatest, will honor their husbands.”
• Isa 13:8Terror, pain, and anguish will seize them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look at one another, their faces flushed with fear.
• Isa 21:3Therefore my body is filled with anguish. Pain grips me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am bewildered to hear, I am dismayed to see.
• Isa 26:17–18As a woman with child about to give birth writhes and cries out in pain, so were we in Your presence, O LORD.
• Jer 22:23O inhabitant of Lebanon, nestled in the cedars, how you will groan when pangs of anguish come upon you, agony like a woman in labor.”
• Gen 35:16–18Later, they set out from Bethel, and while they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth, and her labor was difficult.
• Jer 13:21What will you say when He sets over you close allies whom you yourself trained? Will not pangs of anguish grip you, as they do a woman in labor?
• Jer 4:31For I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child—the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands to say, “Woe is me, for my soul faints before the murderers!”
• Ps 48:6Trembling seized them there, anguish like a woman in labor.
• Jer 49:24Damascus has become feeble; she has turned to flee. Panic has gripped her; anguish and pain have seized her like a woman in labor.
• Isa 53:11After the anguish of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities.
• Num 30:7–8and her husband hears of it but says nothing to her on that day, then the vows or pledges by which she has bound herself shall stand.

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.