Genesis 9–11

The New Beginning

9Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Have many children; grow in number and fill the earth. ²Every animal on earth, every bird in the sky, every animal that crawls on the ground, and every fish in the sea will respect and fear you. I have given them to you.

³“Everything that moves, everything that is alive, is yours for food. Earlier I gave you the green plants, but now I give you everything for food. ⁴But you must not eat meat that still has blood in it, because blood gives life. ⁵I will demand blood for life. I will demand the life of any animal that kills a person, and I will demand the life of anyone who takes another person’s life.

⁶“Whoever kills a human being

will be killed by a human being,

because God made humans

in his own image.

⁷“As for you, Noah, I want you and your family to have many children, to grow in number on the earth, and to become many.”

⁸Then God said to Noah and his sons, ⁹“Now I am making my agreement with you and your people who will live after you, ¹⁰and with every living thing that is with you—the birds, the tame and the wild animals, and with everything that came out of the boat with you—with every living thing on earth. ¹¹I make this agreement with you: I will never again destroy all living things by a flood. A flood will never again destroy the earth.”

¹²And God said, “This is the sign of the agreement between me and you and every living creature that is with you. ¹³I am putting my rainbow in the clouds as the sign of the agreement between me and the earth. ¹⁴When I bring clouds over the earth and a rainbow appears in them, ¹⁵I will remember my agreement between me and you and every living thing. Floods will never again destroy all life on the earth. ¹⁶When the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and I will remember the agreement that continues forever between me and every living thing on the earth.”

¹⁷So God said to Noah, “The rainbow is a sign of the agreement that I made with all living things on earth.”

Noah and His Sons

¹⁸The sons of Noah who came out of the boat with him were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) ¹⁹These three men were Noah’s sons, and all the people on earth came from these three sons.

²⁰Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard. ²¹When he drank wine made from his grapes, he became drunk and lay naked in his tent. ²²Ham, the father of Canaan, looked at his naked father and told his brothers outside. ²³Then Shem and Japheth got a coat and, carrying it on both their shoulders, they walked backwards into the tent and covered their father. They turned their faces away so that they did not see their father’s nakedness.

²⁴Noah was sleeping because of the wine. When he woke up and learned what his youngest son, Ham, had done to him, ²⁵he said,

“May there be a curse on Canaan!

May he be the lowest slave to his brothers.”

²⁶Noah also said,

“May the Lord, the God of Shem, be praised!

May Canaan be Shem’s slave.

²⁷May God give more land to Japheth.

May Japheth live in Shem’s tents,

and may Canaan be their slave.”

²⁸After the flood Noah lived 350 years. ²⁹He lived a total of 950 years, and then he died.

Nations Grow and Spread

10This is the family history of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah. After the flood these three men had sons.

Japheth’s Sons

²The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.

³The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.

⁴The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, ⁿ and Rodanim. ⁵Those who lived in the lands around the Mediterranean Sea came from these sons of Japheth. All the families grew and became different nations, each nation with its own land and its own language.

Ham’s Sons

⁶The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, ⁿ Put, and Canaan.

⁷The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca.

The sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan.

⁸Cush also had a descendant named Nimrod, who became a very powerful man on earth. ⁹He was a great hunter before the Lord, which is why people say someone is “like Nimrod, a great hunter before the Lord.” ¹⁰At first Nimrod’s kingdom covered Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh in the land of Babylonia. ¹¹From there he went to Assyria, where he built the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, and Calah. ¹²He also built Resen, the great city between Nineveh and Calah.

¹³Mizraim was the father of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, ¹⁴Pathrusites, Casluhites, and the people of Crete. (The Philistines came from the Casluhites.)

¹⁵Canaan was the father of Sidon, his first son, and of Heth. ¹⁶He was also the father of the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, ¹⁷Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, ¹⁸Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites. The families of the Canaanites scattered. ¹⁹Their land reached from Sidon to Gerar as far as Gaza, and then to Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.

²⁰All these people were the sons of Ham, and all these families had their own languages, their own lands, and their own nations.

Shem’s Sons

²¹Shem, Japheth’s older brother, also had sons. One of his descendants was the father of all the sons of Eber.

²²The sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.

²³The sons of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshech.

²⁴Arphaxad was the father of Shelah, who was the father of Eber. ²⁵Eber was the father of two sons—one named Peleg, ⁿ because the earth was divided during his life, and the other was named Joktan.

²⁶Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, ²⁷Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, ²⁸Obal, Abimael, Sheba, ²⁹Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these people were the sons of Joktan. ³⁰They lived in the area between Mesha and Sephar in the hill country in the East.

³¹These are the people from the family of Shem, arranged by families, languages, countries, and nations.

³²This is the list of the families from the sons of Noah, arranged according to their nations. From these families came all the nations who spread across the earth after the flood.

The Languages Confused

11At this time the whole world spoke one language, and everyone used the same words. ²As people moved from the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there.

³They said to each other, “Let’s make bricks and bake them to make them hard.” So they used bricks instead of stones, and tar instead of mortar. ⁴Then they said to each other, “Let’s build a city and a tower for ourselves, whose top will reach high into the sky. We will become famous. Then we will not be scattered over all the earth.”

⁵The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people had built. ⁶The Lord said, “Now, these people are united, all speaking the same language. This is only the beginning of what they will do. They will be able to do anything they want. ⁷Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not be able to understand each other.”

⁸So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹The place is called Babel ⁿ since that is where the Lord confused the language of the whole world. So the Lord caused them to spread out from there over the whole world.

The Story of Shem’s Family

¹⁰This is the family history of Shem. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, his son Arphaxad was born. ¹¹After that, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹²When Arphaxad was 35 years old, his son Shelah was born. ¹³After that, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁴When Shelah was 30 years old, his son Eber was born. ¹⁵After that, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁶When Eber was 34 years old, his son Peleg was born. ¹⁷After that, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁸When Peleg was 30 years old, his son Reu was born. ¹⁹After that, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁰When Reu was 32 years old, his son Serug was born. ²¹After that, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

²²When Serug was 30 years old, his son Nahor was born. ²³After that, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁴When Nahor was 29 years old, his son Terah was born. ²⁵After that, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁶After Terah was 70 years old, his sons Abram, Nahor, and Haran were born.

The Story of Terah’s Family

²⁷This is the family history of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran was the father of Lot. ²⁸While his father, Terah, was still alive, Haran died in Ur in Babylonia, where he was born. ²⁹Abram and Nahor both married. Abram’s wife was named Sarai, and Nahor’s wife was named Milcah. She was the daughter of Haran, who was the father of both Milcah and Iscah. ³⁰Sarai was not able to have children.

³¹Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (Haran’s son), and his daughter-in-law Sarai (Abram’s wife) and moved out of Ur of Babylonia. They had planned to go to the land of Canaan, but when they reached the city of Haran, they settled there.

³²Terah lived to be 205 years old, and then he died in Haran.