1God blessed Noah and his sons. He said to them, ‘Give birth to many children so that you become very many people. Your descendants will live all over the earth. 2All the animals and all the birds will be afraid of you. You have authority over them. You also have authority over all the living things that move across the ground and all the fish in the sea. 3You may now eat anything that lives and moves. Before, I gave you the green plants to eat. Now I give you everything to eat as your food.

4But you must not eat meat that still has the blood of life in it.

5If any person or animal kills a human, I will certainly punish them. Their punishment will be death.

6God made people so that they were like himself. #9:6 See Genesis 1:26.

So if anyone kills a human,

another human must kill him.

7But as for you, you should give birth to many children so that you become very many people. There will be many people and they will live all over the earth.’

8God said to Noah and to his sons, 9‘I promise you that I will obey the covenant that I am making with you. #9:9 A covenant is a special agreement that God makes with people. He promises that he will help them in a certain way. I promise this to you and to all your descendants. 10I also promise this to all the animals and birds that came out of the ship with you. That is everything that lives on the earth. 11This is the covenant that I promise to keep: I will never cause water to destroy all living things on the earth again. Deep water will never again come again to destroy the earth.’

12Then God said, ‘I will show you clearly that I have made this covenant with you, and with every living animal. I will keep this promise for ever, for as long as people live on the earth. 13I have put my rainbow among the clouds in the sky. It will show you clearly that I have made this covenant with everything on the earth. 14When I bring clouds over the earth, a rainbow will sometimes appear. 15Then I will remember the covenant that I have made with you and with all the different kinds of living things. Never again will the water become so deep that it destroys everything that lives. 16When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember my covenant. It is a promise that I have made with every kind of living thing on the earth.’

17Then God said to Noah, ‘The rainbow will show you that I will certainly keep my promise. I will keep my covenant that is between me and everything that lives on the earth.’

Noah's sons

18The names of Noah's sons were Shem, Ham and Japheth. They all came out of the ship with Noah. Ham later became the father of a son called Canaan. 19All the people who live on the earth are descendants of Noah's three sons.

20Noah was a farmer. He was the first person to plant vines.

21He used the grapes to make wine. One day, he drank some of the wine and he became drunk. He lay inside his tent and he slept. He was not wearing any clothes. 22Canaan's father, Ham, saw that Noah was not wearing any clothes. He went out of the tent. He told his two brothers what he had seen. 23Then Shem and Japheth took Noah's coat and they put it between their shoulders. They walked into Noah's tent with their backs to Noah. In this way they covered their father with the coat. They looked away from their father so that they did not see him. They did this because Noah was not wearing any clothes. #9:23 Vines grow a small round fruit called grapes. People use grapes to make wine. Wine is a drink containing alcohol.

24Later, when he was no longer drunk with the wine, Noah woke up. He found out what his youngest son, Ham, had done. 25He said, ‘I curse Canaan! He will become a slave that must serve his brothers.’

26Noah also said, ‘I praise the Lord, the God of Shem! Let Canaan become Shem's slave! 27I pray that God will make the land of Japheth and his descendants grow bigger. I pray that the descendants of Japheth will share good things with Shem. I pray that Canaan will become Japheth's slave.’ #9:27 Noah wanted God to bless Shem and Japheth, because they did the right thing. Noah asked for a curse on the descendants of Ham because he caused Noah to be ashamed.

28Noah lived for 350 years after God covered the earth with deep water. 29In his whole life, Noah lived for 950 years. Then he died.

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Genesis 9

1And God blesseth Noah, and his sons, and saith to them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth;

2and your fear and your dread is on every beast of the earth, and on every fowl of the heavens, on all that creepeth on the ground, and on all fishes of the sea — into your hand they have been given.

3Every creeping thing that is alive, to you it is for food; as the green herb I have given to you the whole;

4only flesh in its life — its blood — ye do not eat.

5‘And only your blood for your lives do I require; from the hand of every living thing I require it, and from the hand of man, from the hand of every man's brother I require the life of man;

6whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man is his blood shed: for in the image of God hath He made man.

7And ye, be fruitful and multiply, teem in the earth, and multiply in it.’

8And God speaketh unto Noah, and unto his sons with him, saying,

9‘And I, lo, I am establishing My covenant with you, and with your seed after you,

10and with every living creature which [is] with you, among fowl, among cattle, and among every beast of the earth with you, from all who are going out of the ark — to every beast of the earth.

11And I have established My covenant with you, and all flesh is not any more cut off by waters of a deluge, and there is not any more a deluge to destroy the earth.’

12And God saith, ‘This is a token of the covenant which I am giving between Me and you, and every living creature that [is] with you, to generations age-during;

13My bow I have given in the cloud, and it hath been for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth;

14and it hath come to pass (in My sending a cloud over the earth) that the bow hath been seen in the cloud,

15and I have remembered My covenant which is between Me and you, and every living creature among all flesh, and the waters become no more a deluge to destroy all flesh;

16and the bow hath been in the cloud, and I have seen it — to remember the covenant age-during between God and every living creature among all flesh which [is] on the earth.’

17And God saith unto Noah, ‘This [is] a token of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that [is] upon the earth.’

18And the sons of Noah who are going out of the ark are Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is father of Canaan.

19These three [are] sons of Noah, and from these hath all the earth been overspread.

20And Noah remaineth a man of the ground, and planteth a vineyard,

21and drinketh of the wine, and is drunken, and uncovereth himself in the midst of the tent.

22And Ham, father of Canaan, seeth the nakedness of his father, and declareth to his two brethren without.

23And Shem taketh — Japheth also — the garment, and they place on the shoulder of them both, and go backward, and cover the nakedness of their father; and their faces [are] backward, and their father's nakedness they have not seen.

24And Noah awaketh from his wine, and knoweth that which his young son hath done to him,

25and saith: ‘Cursed [is] Canaan, Servant of servants he is to his brethren.’

26And he saith: ‘Blessed of Jehovah my God [is] Shem, And Canaan is servant to him.

27God doth give beauty to Japheth, And he dwelleth in tents of Shem, And Canaan is servant to him.’

28And Noah liveth after the deluge three hundred and fifty years;

29and all the days of Noah are nine hundred and fifty years, and he dieth.

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Genesis 9

Genesis 9