Genesis 8:20–9:17

^20–21Noah built an altar to God. He selected clean animals and birds from every species and offered them as burnt offerings on the altar. God smelled the sweet fragrance and thought to himself, “I’ll never again curse the ground because of people. I know they have this bent toward evil from an early age, but I’ll never again kill off everything living as I’ve just done.

²²For as long as Earth lasts,

planting and harvest, cold and heat,

Summer and winter, day and night

will never stop.”

^1–49God blessed Noah and his sons: He said, “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill the Earth! Every living creature—birds, animals, fish—will fall under your spell and be afraid of you. You’re responsible for them. All living creatures are yours for food; just as I gave you the plants, now I give you everything else. Except for meat with its Life-blood still in it—don’t eat that.

⁵“But your own Life-blood I will avenge; I will avenge it against both animals and other humans.

^6–7Whoever sheds human blood,

by humans let his blood be shed,

Because God made humans in his image

reflecting God’s very nature.

You’re here to bear fruit, reproduce,

lavish life on the Earth, live bountifully!”

^8–11Then God spoke to Noah and his sons: “I’m setting up my covenant with you including your children who will come after you, along with everything alive around you—birds, farm animals, wild animals—that came out of the ship with you. I’m setting up my covenant with you that never again will everything living be destroyed by floodwaters; no, never again will a flood destroy the Earth.”

^12–16God continued, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth.”

¹⁷And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I’ve set up between me and everything living on the Earth.”