Genesis 8–9

8TH CHAPTER

God Remembers Noah

¹God remembered Noah and all the wild and domestic animals with him in the ship. So God made a wind blow over the earth, and the water started to go down. ²The deep springs and the sky had been shut, and the rain had stopped pouring. ³The water began to recede from the land. At the end of 150 days the water had decreased. ⁴On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ship came to rest in the mountains of Ararat. ⁵The water kept decreasing until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains appeared. 

⁶After 40 more days Noah opened the window he had made in the ship ⁷and sent out a raven. It kept flying back and forth until the water on the land had dried up. ⁸Next, he sent out a dove to see if the water was gone from the surface of the ground. ⁹The dove couldn’t find a place to land because the water was still all over the earth. So it came back to Noah in the ship. He reached out and brought the dove back into the ship. ¹⁰He waited seven more days and again sent the dove out of the ship. ¹¹The dove came to him in the evening, and in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf. Then Noah knew that the water was gone from the earth. ¹²He waited seven more days and sent out the dove again, but it never came back to him. 

¹³By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water on the land had dried up. Noah opened the top of the ship, looked out, and saw the surface of the ground. ¹⁴By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was dry. 

¹⁵Then God spoke to Noah, ¹⁶“Come out of the ship with your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives. ¹⁷Bring out every animal that’s with you: birds, domestic animals, and every creature that crawls on the earth. Be fertile, increase in number, and spread over the earth.” 

¹⁸So Noah came out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹Every animal, crawling creature, and bird—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the ship, one kind after another. 

²⁰Noah built an altar to the Lord. On it he made a burnt offering of each type of clean^aanimal and clean bird. ²¹The Lord smelled the soothing aroma. He said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of humans, even though from birth their hearts are set on nothing but evil. I will never again kill every living creature as I have just done. 

²²As long as the earth exists, 

planting and harvesting, 

cold and heat, 

summer and winter, 

day and night 

will never stop.” 

9TH CHAPTER

God Blesses Noah and His Sons

¹God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fertile, increase in number, and fill the earth. ²All the wild animals and all the birds will fear you and be terrified of you. Every creature that crawls on the ground and all the fish in the sea have been put under your control. ³Everything that lives and moves will be your food. I gave you green plants as food; I now give you everything else. 

⁴“But you are not to eat meat with blood in it. (Blood is life.) ⁵In addition, I will demand your blood for your life. I will demand it from any animal or from any person. I will demand the life of any person ⸤who kills⸥ another person. 

⁶Whoever sheds human blood, 

by humans his blood will be shed, 

because in the image of God, God made humans. 

⁷Be fertile, and increase in number. Spread over the earth, and increase.” 

God’s Promise—the Sign of the Rainbow

⁸God also said to Noah and his sons, ⁹“I am going to make my promise^ato you, your descendants, ¹⁰and every living being that is with you—birds, domestic animals, and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ship—every living thing on earth. ¹¹I am making my promise to you. Never again will all life be killed by floodwaters. Never again will there be a flood that destroys the earth.” 

¹²God said, “This is the sign of the promise I am giving to you and every living being that is with you for generations to come. ¹³I will put my rainbow in the clouds to be a sign of my promise to the earth. ¹⁴Whenever I form clouds over the earth, a rainbow will appear in the clouds. ¹⁵Then I will remember my promise to you and every living animal. Never again will water become a flood to destroy all life. ¹⁶Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember my everlasting promise to every living animal on earth.” 

¹⁷So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the promise I am making to all life on earth.” 

Noah Curses Canaan but Blesses Shem and Japheth

¹⁸Noah’s sons, who came out of the ship, were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. ¹⁹These were Noah’s three sons. From them the whole earth was populated. Ham was the father of Canaan.^b

²⁰Noah, a farmer, was the first person to plant a vineyard. ²¹He drank some wine, got drunk, and lay naked inside his tent. ²²Ham, father of Canaan, saw his father naked. So he went outside and told his two brothers. 

²³Shem and Japheth took a blanket and laid it over their shoulders. Then they walked in backwards and covered their father’s naked body. They turned their faces away so that they didn’t see their father naked. 

²⁴When Noah sobered up, he found out what his youngest son had done to him. ²⁵So he said, 

“Canaan is cursed! 

He will be the lowest slave to his brothers. 

²⁶Praise the Lord, the God of Shem! 

Canaan will be his slave. 

²⁷May God expand the territory of Japheth.^c

May he live in the tents of Shem. 

Canaan will be his slave.” 

²⁸Noah lived 350 years after the flood. ²⁹Noah lived a total of 950 years; then he died.