15 Then God spoke to Noah, saying, 16 “Go out of the ark, hyou and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and ibe fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.

God’s Covenant with Creation

20 Then Noah built an jaltar to the Lord, and took of kevery clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered lburnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the Lord smelled ma soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again ncurse the ground for man’s sake, although the oimagination 1of man’s heart is evil from his youth; pnor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

22 “While the earth qremains,

Seedtime and harvest,

Cold and heat,

Winter and summer,

And rday and night

Shall not cease.”

9 So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: a“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. 2 bAnd the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. 3 cEvery moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you dall things, even as the egreen herbs. 4 fBut you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; gfrom the hand of every beast I will require it, and hfrom the hand of man. From the hand of every iman’s brother I will require the life of man.

6 “Whoever jsheds man’s blood,

By man his blood shall be shed;

kFor in the image of God

He made man.

7 And as for you, lbe fruitful and multiply;

Bring forth abundantly in the earth

And multiply in it.”

8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying: 9 “And as for Me, mbehold, I establish nMy covenant with you and with your 1descendants after you, 10 oand with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth. 11 Thus pI establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

12 And God said: q“This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I set rMy rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. 14 It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; 15 and sI will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember tthe everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 And 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.”