Genesis 9
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.
© British and Foreign Bible Society 2012
Genesis 9
9
1-4God 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 lifeblood still in it—don’t eat that.
5“But your own lifeblood 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.”
18-19The sons of Noah who came out of the ship were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah; from these three the whole Earth was populated.
20-23Noah, a farmer, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank from its wine, got drunk and passed out, naked in his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw that his father was naked and told his two brothers who were outside the tent. Shem and Japheth took a cloak, held it between them from their shoulders, walked backward and covered their father’s nakedness, keeping their faces turned away so they did not see their father’s exposed body.
24-27When Noah woke up with his hangover, he learned what his youngest son had done. He said,
Cursed be Canaan! A slave of slaves,
a slave to his brothers!
Blessed be God, the God of Shem,
but Canaan shall be his slave.
God prosper Japheth,
living spaciously in the tents of Shem.
But Canaan shall be his slave.
28-29Noah lived another 350 years following the flood. He lived a total of 950 years. And he died.
THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.