Genesis 3:19

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Adam had been the stronger vessel, even before the Fall. He had had the strength to withstand the temptation; he should have held out even after Eve sinned. But he obeyed the voice of his wife and ate of the forbidden tree. Therefore the field, the soil, which had till now brought forth willingly and in rich abundance, was to be stricken with the curse of God, with the result that man would be able to eat the fruit of the soil only with sorrow, with the continual consciousness of the constant application which is now necessary in bringing it to a state of yielding, of the unceasing battle with thorns, thistles, and noxious weeds. Only in the sweat of his face, through the expenditure of the most assiduous toil, is man now able to eat his bread. For with the Fall the curse of God went into effect; the germ of death was placed into the body of man. His body was now mortal, and destined to return to the earth from which it was originally taken. That is the wages and the curse of sin. This curse, moreover, has extended over the entire material world, the result being a degenerating, a brutalizing of all creation, corruption, death, and destruction. If it were not for the fact that the promise of Christ, the Messiah, stands in the middle between sin and punishment, we should be without comfort in the misery, distress, and tribulation of the earth.