Genesis 9–11

God’s Covenant with Noah

9^*God blessed Noah and his sons and said, “Have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth. ²All the animals, birds, and fish will live in fear of you. They are all placed under your power. ³Now you can eat them, as well as green plants; I give them all to you for food. ^4*The one thing you must not eat is meat with blood still in it; I forbid this because the life is in the blood. ⁵If anyone takes human life, he will be punished. I will punish with death any animal that takes a human life. ^6*Human beings were made like God, so whoever murders one of them will be killed by someone else.

^7*“You must have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth.”

⁸God said to Noah and his sons, ⁹“I am now making my covenant with you and with your descendants, ¹⁰and with all living beings—all birds and all animals—everything that came out of the boat with you. ¹¹With these words I make my covenant with you: I promise that never again will all living beings be destroyed by a flood; never again will a flood destroy the earth. ¹²As a sign of this everlasting covenant which I am making with you and with all living beings, ¹³I am putting my bow in the clouds. It will be the sign of my covenant with the world. ¹⁴Whenever I cover the sky with clouds and the rainbow appears, ¹⁵I will remember my promise to you and to all the animals that a flood will never again destroy all living beings. ¹⁶When the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between me and all living beings on earth. ¹⁷That is the sign of the promise which I am making to all living beings.”

Noah and His Sons

¹⁸The sons of Noah who went out of the boat were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) ¹⁹These three sons of Noah were the ancestors of all the people on earth.

²⁰Noah, who was a farmer, was the first man to plant a vineyard. ²¹After he drank some of the wine, he became drunk, took off his clothes, and lay naked in his tent. ²²When Ham, the father of Canaan, saw that his father was naked, he went out and told his two brothers. ²³Then Shem and Japheth took a robe and held it behind them on their shoulders. They walked backwards into the tent and covered their father, keeping their faces turned away so as not to see him naked. ²⁴When Noah was sober again and learnt what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵he said,

“A curse on Canaan!

He will be a slave to his brothers.

²⁶Give praise to the Lord, the God of Shem!

Canaan will be the slave of Shem.

²⁷May God cause Japheth^d to increase! May his descendants live with the people of Shem!

Canaan will be the slave of Japheth.”

²⁸After the flood Noah lived for 350 years ²⁹and died at the age of 950.

The Descendants of Noah’s Sons

10These are the descendants of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. These three had sons after the flood.

²The sons of Japheth—Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras—were the ancestors of the peoples who bear their names. ³The descendants of Gomer were the people of Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. ⁴The descendants of Javan were the people of Elishah, Spain, Cyprus, and Rhodes; ⁵they were the ancestors of the people who live along the coast and on the islands. These are the descendants of Japheth, living in their different tribes and countries, each group speaking its own language.

⁶The sons of Ham—Cush, Egypt, Libya and Canaan—were the ancestors of the peoples who bear their names. ⁷The descendants of Cush were the people of Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The descendants of Raamah were the people of Sheba and Dedan. ⁸Cush had a son named Nimrod, who became the world’s first great conqueror. ⁹By the Lord’s help he was a great hunter, and that is why people say, “May the Lord make you as great a hunter as Nimrod!” ¹⁰At first his kingdom included Babylon, Erech, and Accad, all three of them in Babylonia. ¹¹From that land he went to Assyria and built the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, ¹²and Resen, which is between Nineveh and the great city of Calah.

¹³The descendants of Egypt were the people of Lydia, Anam, Lehab, Naphtuh, ¹⁴Pathrus, Casluh, and of Crete, from whom the Philistines are descended.^e

¹⁵Canaan’s sons—Sidon, the eldest, and Heth—were the ancestors of the peoples who bear their names. ¹⁶Canaan was also the ancestor of the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, ¹⁷the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, ¹⁸the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. The different tribes of the Canaanites spread out, ¹⁹until the Canaanite borders reached from Sidon southwards to Gerar near Gaza, and eastwards to Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim near Lasha. ²⁰These are the descendants of Ham, living in their different tribes and countries, each group speaking its own language.

²¹Shem, the elder brother of Japheth, was the ancestor of all the Hebrews. ²²Shem’s sons—Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram—were the ancestors of the peoples who bear their names. ²³The descendants of Aram were the people of Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshek. ²⁴Arpachshad was the father of Shelah, who was the father of Eber. ²⁵Eber had two sons: one was named Peleg,^f because during his time the people of the world were divided; and the other was named Joktan. ²⁶The descendants of Joktan were the people of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, ²⁷Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, ²⁸Obal, Abimael, Sheba, ²⁹Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All of them were descended from Joktan. ³⁰The land in which they lived extended from Mesha to Sephar in the eastern hill country. ³¹These are the descendants of Shem, living in their different tribes and countries, each group speaking its own language.

³²All these peoples are the descendants of Noah, nation by nation, according to their different lines of descent. After the flood all the nations of the earth were descended from the sons of Noah.

The Tower of Babylon

11At first, the people of the whole world had only one language and used the same words. ²As they wandered about in the East, they came to a plain in Babylonia and settled there. ³They said to one another, “Come on! Let’s make bricks and bake them hard.” So they had bricks to build with and tar to hold them together. ⁴They said, “Now let’s build a city with a tower that reaches the sky, so that we can make a name for ourselves and not be scattered all over the earth.”

⁵Then the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which those men had built, ⁶and he said, “Now then, these are all one people and they speak one language; this is just the beginning of what they are going to do. Soon they will be able to do anything they want! ⁷Let us go down and mix up their language so that they will not understand one another.” ⁸So the Lord scattered them all over the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹The city was called Babylon,^g because there the Lord mixed up the language of all the people, and from there he scattered them all over the earth.

The Descendants of Shem

¹⁰These are the descendants of Shem. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he had a son, Arpachshad. ¹¹After that, he lived another 500 years and had other children.

¹²When Arpachshad was 35 years old, he had a son, Shelah; ¹³after that, he lived another 403 years and had other children.

¹⁴When Shelah was 30 years old, he had a son, Eber; ¹⁵after that, he lived another 403 years and had other children.

¹⁶When Eber was 34 years old, he had a son, Peleg; ¹⁷after that, he lived another 430 years and had other children.

¹⁸When Peleg was 30 years old, he had a son, Reu; ¹⁹after that, he lived another 209 years and had other children.

²⁰When Reu was 32 years old, he had a son, Serug; ²¹after that, he lived another 207 years and had other children.

²²When Serug was 30 years old, he had a son, Nahor; ²³after that, he lived another 200 years and had other children.

²⁴When Nahor was 29 years old, he had a son, Terah; ²⁵after that, he lived another 119 years and had other children.

²⁶After Terah was 70 years old, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

The Descendants of Terah

²⁷These are the descendants of Terah, who was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran was the father of Lot, ²⁸and Haran died in his native city, Ur in Babylonia, while his father was still living. ²⁹Abram married Sarai, and Nahor married Milcah, the daughter of Haran, who was also the father of Iscah. ³⁰Sarai was not able to have children.

³¹Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, who was the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, Abram’s wife, and with them he left the city of Ur in Babylonia to go to the land of Canaan. They went as far as Haran and settled there. ³²Terah died there at the age of 205.