Here we see the 2nd Creation Story.
(The editors didn’t choose between the 2; they put them side-by-side.) Both are true in that they reinforce ideas about God that complement each other.
In the 1st Creation Story, (“Priestly” source) God creates by speaking. There is a plan, there is order, but he is somewhat distant.
In the 2nd Creation Story, (“Yahwist, or “J” source), God is more intimate with Man. He talks with him, inaugurates work, teaches him, makes a mate for him.
(God can seem “distant” at times, in that we won’t totally understand him in this life, yet we know he has a plan for us. God also desires intimacy with us...a relationship based on love. So, both accounts work hand-in-hand.)
2:3 “You are free to.....” God gives us a free will. He WANTS us to love Him, but he lets us make that choice. (Otherwise, it wouldn’t be love!)
2:21-24 God inaugurates marriage. The couple are to become one body...which also prefigures the Church! Jesus quotes v24 in his teaching about the indissolubility of marriage. (Mt. 19:5)
(More on what we are to understand from Chapters 1-2 after we finish Chapter 3.)
