Can you summarize this text? Please answer in full sentences.

"Genesis 4:8-16: 

What did Cain say to Abel? The Hebrew says “Cain said to his brother Abel. When they were in the field,” etc. People reading only in some English translations (like the NRSV) will miss this, because they fill the apparent gap: They read, “Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out to the field. When they were in the field,” etc. That’s what the Greek version has too, as do many other ancient versions (though notably not the Dead Sea Scrolls). Here’s my take: the Hebrew is just fine as it is. Why? Because this very phenomenon, “Someone said,” Hebrew ויאמר, followed by no actual direct speech, happens a couple of other times in the Pentateuch - and they’re all in J. It looks weird, but it seems to be a conscious stylistic choice in the J text. So I’ll keep it there. YHWH feels Cain that he is “more cursed than the ground,” a reference to the curse of Gen 3:17, and evidence of the literary relationship between the two narratives. (Also the same parental technique used by YHWH: asking a question you already know the answer to...) Cain’s curse is that the ground won’t yield him any produce even when he works it - a fitting punishment for the brother who brought his gift to God from the soil. His wandering isn’t really the curse in itself; it’s just the necessary result of not being able to work the land. Cain’s worry about being a wanderer isn’t that people will recognize him as a murderer: it’s that without a homeland, he will always be unprotected by the standard social ties of land and kinship. He is a perpetual stranger, dependent only on the kindness of others. The mark YHWH gives him is, of course, not one of shame or accusation, but of protection: it guarantees Cain’s safety. J, I should note, has no law code in which to declare the importance of hospitality toward the stranger. J makes this clear through the stories of Genesis. That principle is everywhere in J’s ancestral tales, but it begins here. Cain is the first stranger, and YHWH ensures that no one will lay so much as a finger on him, despite his vulnerabilities. That’s my read on what this part of the story is about. Now, you may ask, who the hell is Cain worried about hurting him, since the only people on earth are his parents? And to that I say, you’re missing the point. J doesn’t care about that particular consistency, and neither should we. Who does Cain marry in 4:17? 🤷‍♂️ That said, there’s reason to think that this story, like so many, had its origins as a tradition independent from its current textual and narrative context. Which accounts for the ill fit with the premise of the previous chapter, that this is the first generation of humanity. Many read this story as a semi-mythic version of the conflict between pastoralists and agriculturalists, and about the rise of farming over shepherding as the primary way of life, and probably something about nomadism too. I’m unconvinced. First, that’s more “secret code” “find the real history behind the story” “every biblical passage has to have a deeper meaning and some identifiable historical reference” kind of reading, and I’m not super into it. Second, that reading comes from a time when it was thought that there were these two distinct ways of life in the Near East, and that they were actually in some regular struggle for dominance. We now know that wasn’t really the case: the two coexisted and blended. Third, that’s basically to make the whole story about which gifts the brothers brought, which seems a bit unbalanced as a reading practice. Especially since it doesn’t even say that one was a farmer and one was a shepherd, just that they brought different offerings. If I had to say the story was “about” something, I’d say it’s making good choices, not being jealous of others’ successes, probably don’t commit murder (and the inherent human nature toward doing evil), and the requirement of hospitality toward strangers. Isn’t that enough?"