Genesis 9

God's promise to Noah

1God said to Noah and his sons:#Gn 1.28.

I am giving you my blessing. Have a lot of children and grandchildren, so people will live everywhere on this earth. 2All animals, birds, reptiles, and fish will be afraid of you. I have placed them under your control, 3and I have given them to you for food. From now on, you may eat them, as well as the green plants that you have always eaten. 4But life is in the blood, and you must not eat any meat that still has blood in it.#Lv 7.26,27; 17.10-14; 19.26; Dt 12.16,23; 15.23. 5-6I created humans to be like me, and I will punish any animal or person that takes a human life. If an animal kills someone, that animal must die. And if a person takes the life of another, that person must be put to death.#Ex 20.13; Gn 1.26.

7I want you and your descendants to have many children, so people will live everywhere on earth.#Gn 1.28.

8Again, God said to Noah and his sons:

9I am going to make a solemn promise to you and to everyone who will live after you. 10This includes the birds and the animals that came out of the boat. 11I promise every living creature that the earth and those living on it will never again be destroyed by a flood.

12-13The rainbow that I have put in the sky will be my sign to you and to every living creature on earth. It will remind you that I will keep this promise for ever. 14When I send clouds over the earth, and a rainbow appears in the sky, 15I will remember my promise to you and to all other living creatures. Never again will I let flood waters destroy all life. 16When I see the rainbow in the sky, I will always remember the promise that I have made to every living creature. 17The rainbow will be the sign of that solemn promise.

Noah and his family

18Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, came out of the boat. Ham later had a son named Canaan. 19All people on earth are descendants of Noah's three sons.

20Noah farmed the land and was the first to plant a vineyard. 21One day he got drunk and was lying naked in his tent. 22Ham entered the tent and saw him naked, then went back outside and told his brothers. 23Shem and Japheth put a robe over their shoulders and walked backwards into the tent. Without looking at their father, they placed it over his body.

24When Noah woke up and learnt what his youngest son Ham had done, 25he said,

“I now put a curse on Canaan!

He will be the lowest slave

of his brothers.

26I ask the LORD my God

to bless Shem

and make Canaan his slave.

27I pray that the LORD

will give Japheth

more and more#9.27 more and more: In Hebrew “Japheth” sounds like “more and more”. land

and let him take over

the territory of Shem.

May Canaan be his slave.”

28Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood 29and died at the age of nine hundred and fifty.

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Genesis 9

CHAPTER 9

1And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, Increase ye, and be ye multiplied, and fill ye the earth;

2and your dread and trembling be on all [the] unreasonable beasts of the earth, and on all [the] birds of heaven, with all things that be moved in earth; all fishes of the sea be given to your hand.

3And all thing which is moved and liveth shall be to you into meat; I have given to you all things, as I gave the green worts before,

4except that ye shall not eat flesh with the blood,

5for I shall seek the blood of your lives, of the hand of all unreasonable beasts and of the hand of man, of the hand of man and of his brother, I shall seek the life of man.

6Whoever sheddeth out man’s blood, his blood shall be shed; for man is made to the image of God.

7Forsooth increase ye, and be ye multiplied, and enter ye on [the] earth, and fill ye it.

8Also the Lord said these things to Noah, and to his sons with him,

9Lo! I shall make my covenant with you, and with your seed after you,

10and to each living soul which is with you, as well in birds as in work beasts and small beasts of [the] earth, and to all things that went out of the ship, and to all unreasonable beasts of [the] earth.

11I shall make my covenant with you, and each flesh shall no more be slain of the waters of the great flood, neither the great flood destroying all [the] earth shall be any more.

12And God said, This is the sign of bond of peace, which I give between me and you, and to each living soul which is with you, into everlasting generations.

13I shall set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of bond of peace between me and [the] earth;

14and when I shall cover [the] heaven with clouds, my bow shall appear in the clouds,

15and I shall have mind of my bond of peace which I made with you, and with each soul living that nourisheth flesh; and the waters of the great flood shall no more be to do away all flesh.

16And my bow shall be in the clouds, and I shall see it, and I shall have mind of the everlasting bond of peace, which is made between God and man, and each soul living of all flesh which is on [the] earth.

17And God said to Noah, This shall be a sign of [the] bond of peace, which I made between me and each flesh on earth.

18Therefore they that went out of the ship were Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; forsooth Ham, that is the father of Canaan.

19These three were the sons of Noah, and all the kind of men was sown of them on all [the] earth.

20And Noah, an earth-tiller, began to till the earth, and he planted a vinery [or a vineyard],

21and one day he drank wine, and was drunken; and he was naked, and lay in his tabernacle.

22And when Ham, the father of Canaan, had seen this thing, that is, that the shameful members of his father were made naked, he told his two brethren withoutforth.

23And Shem and Japheth putted a mantle on their shoulders, and they went backward, and covered the shameful members of their father, and their faces were turned away, and they saw not the privy members of their father.

24And Noah waked of the wine, and when he had learned what things his lesser, or younger#9:24 Most modern translations and Bible dictionaries refer to Ham as Noah’s youngest son, though he is second in all the lists in the Bible. The KJV, like the “Wycliffe Bible” (both versions), uses ‘younger’ in this verse., son had done to him,

25he said, Cursed be the child Canaan, he shall be a servant of servants to his brethren.

26And Noah said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan be the servant of Shem;

27God alarge Japheth, and dwell he in the tabernacles of Shem, and Canaan be the servant of him.

28Forsooth Noah lived after the great flood three hundred and fifty years;

29and all the days of him were filled nine hundred and fifty years, and he was dead.

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