The history of humankind - John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“Do you remember when you read us the sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis and we argued about them?” “I do indeed. And that’s a long time ago.” “Ten years nearly,” said Lee. “Well, the story bit deeply into me and I went into it word for word. The more I thought about the story, the more profound it became to me. Then I compared the translations we have—and they were fairly close. There was only one place that bothered me. The King James version says this—it is when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry. Jehovah says, ‘If thou doest well, shall thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.’ It was the ‘thou shalt’ that struck me, because it was a promise that Cain would conquer sin.” Samuel nodded. “And his children didn’t do it entirely,” he said. Lee sipped his coffee. “Then I got a copy of the American Standard Bible. It was very new then. And