Genesis 9–11

Chapter 9

Covenant of the Rainbow

¹And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “^aBe fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.

²“The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the ¹sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given.

³“Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, ^aas I gave the green plant.

⁴“Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, ^aits blood.

⁵“Surely I will require ^1ayour lifeblood; ^2bfrom every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man.

⁶“^aWhoever sheds man’s blood,

By man his blood shall be shed,

For ^bin the image of God

He made man.

⁷“As for you, ^abe fruitful and multiply;

¹Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.”

⁸Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying,

⁹“Now behold, ^aI Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your ¹descendants after you;

¹⁰and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth.

¹¹“I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall ^anever again be cut off by the water of the flood, ^bneither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.”

¹²God said, “This is ^athe sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for ¹all successive generations;

¹³I set My ^abow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.

¹⁴“It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud,

¹⁵and ^aI will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and ^bnever again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.

¹⁶“When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the ^aeverlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

¹⁷And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

¹⁸Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth; and ^aHam was the father of Canaan.

¹⁹These three were the sons of Noah, and ^afrom these the whole earth was ¹populated.

²⁰Then Noah began ¹farming and planted a vineyard.

²¹He drank of the wine and ^abecame drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent.

²²Ham, the father of Canaan, ^asaw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.

²³But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were ¹turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness.

²⁴When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him.

²⁵So he said,

“^aCursed be Canaan;

^1bA servant of servants

He shall be to his brothers.”

²⁶He also said,

“^aBlessed be the Lord,

The God of Shem;

And let Canaan be ¹his servant.

²⁷“^aMay God enlarge Japheth,

And let him dwell in the tents of Shem;

And let Canaan be ¹his servant.”

²⁸Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood.

²⁹So all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died.

Chapter 10

Descendants of Noah

¹Now these are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood.

^2aThe sons of Japheth were ^bGomer and Magog and ^cMadai and ^dJavan and Tubal and ^eMeshech and Tiras.

³The sons of Gomer were ^aAshkenaz and ¹Riphath and ^bTogarmah.

⁴The sons of Javan were Elishah and ^aTarshish, Kittim and ¹Dodanim.

⁵From these the coastlands of the nations ¹were separated into their lands, every one according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.

^6aThe sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan.

⁷The sons of Cush were ^aSeba and Havilah and Sabtah and ^bRaamah and Sabteca; and the sons of Raamah were Sheba and ^cDedan.

⁸Now Cush ¹became the father of Nimrod; he ²became a mighty one on the earth.

⁹He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.”

¹⁰The beginning of his kingdom was ^1aBabel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of ^bShinar.

¹¹From that land he went forth ^ainto Assyria, and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah,

¹²and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city.

¹³Mizraim ¹became the father of ^aLudim and Anamim and Lehabim and Naphtuhim

¹⁴and ^aPathrusim and Casluhim (from which came the Philistines) and Caphtorim.

¹⁵Canaan ¹became the father of ^aSidon, his firstborn, and ^bHeth

¹⁶and ^athe Jebusite and the Amorite and the Girgashite

¹⁷and the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinite

¹⁸and the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite; and afterward the families of the Canaanite were spread abroad.

^19aThe territory of the Canaanite ¹extended from Sidon as you go toward Gerar, as far as Gaza; as you go toward ^bSodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.

²⁰These are the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, by their nations.

²¹Also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, and the ¹older brother of Japheth, children were born.

^22aThe sons of Shem were ^bElam and Asshur and ^cArpachshad and ^dLud and Aram.

²³The sons of Aram were ^aUz and Hul and Gether and Mash.

²⁴Arpachshad ¹became the father of ^aShelah; and Shelah became the father of Eber.

^25aTwo sons were born to Eber; the name of the one was ¹Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.

²⁶Joktan ¹became the father of Almodad and Sheleph and Hazarmaveth and Jerah

²⁷and Hadoram and Uzal and Diklah

²⁸and ¹Obal and Abimael and Sheba

²⁹and Ophir and Havilah and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan.

³⁰Now their ¹settlement ²extended from Mesha as you go toward Sephar, the hill country of the east.

³¹These are the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, according to their nations.

³²These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations; and ^aout of these the nations were separated on the earth after the flood.

Chapter 11

Universal Language, Babel, Confusion

¹Now the whole earth ¹used the same language and ²the same words.

²It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land ^aof Shinar and ¹settled there.

³They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used ^atar for mortar.

⁴They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top ^awill reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves ^ba name, otherwise we ^cwill be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

^5aThe Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.

⁶The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have ^1athe same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be ²impossible for them.

⁷“Come, ^alet Us go down and there ^bconfuse their ¹language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

⁸So the Lord ^ascattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.

⁹Therefore its name was called ^1aBabel, because there the Lord confused the ²language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.

Descendants of Shem

^10aThese are the records of the generations of Shem. Shem was one hundred years old, and ¹became the father of Arpachshad two years after the flood;

¹¹and Shem lived five hundred years after he became the father of Arpachshad, and he had other sons and daughters.

¹²Arpachshad lived thirty-five years, and became the father of Shelah;

¹³and Arpachshad lived four hundred and three years after he became the father of Shelah, and he had other sons and daughters.

¹⁴Shelah lived thirty years, and became the father of Eber;

¹⁵and Shelah lived four hundred and three years after he became the father of Eber, and he had other sons and daughters.

¹⁶Eber lived thirty-four years, and became the father of Peleg;

¹⁷and Eber lived four hundred and thirty years after he became the father of Peleg, and he had other sons and daughters.

¹⁸Peleg lived thirty years, and became the father of Reu;

¹⁹and Peleg lived two hundred and nine years after he became the father of Reu, and he had other sons and daughters.

²⁰Reu lived thirty-two years, and became the father of Serug;

²¹and Reu lived two hundred and seven years after he became the father of Serug, and he had other sons and daughters.

²²Serug lived thirty years, and became the father of Nahor;

²³and Serug lived two hundred years after he became the father of Nahor, and he had other sons and daughters.

²⁴Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and became the father of ^aTerah;

²⁵and Nahor lived one hundred and nineteen years after he became the father of Terah, and he had other sons and daughters.

²⁶Terah lived seventy years, and became ^athe father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.

²⁷Now these are the records of the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran; and ^aHaran became the father of ^bLot.

²⁸Haran died ¹in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his birth, in ^aUr of the Chaldeans.

²⁹Abram and ^aNahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was ^bSarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife was ^cMilcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah ¹and Iscah.

^30aSarai was barren; she had no child.

³¹Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went out ¹together from ^aUr of the Chaldeans in order to enter the land of Canaan; and they went as far as Haran, and ²settled there.

³²The days of…