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The New Beginning

¹ Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Have many children; grow in number and fill the earth. ² Every 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. ⁴ But you must not eat meat that still has blood in it, because blood gives life. ⁵ I 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.

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."

⁸ Then God said to Noah and his sons, ⁹ "Now I am making my agreement with you and your people who will live after you, ¹⁰ and 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. ¹¹ I make this agreement with you: I will never again destroy all living things by a flood. A flood will never again destroy the earth."

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

¹⁷ So 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

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

²⁰ Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard. ²¹ When he drank wine made from his grapes, he became drunk and lay naked in his tent. ²² Ham, the father of Canaan, looked at his naked father and told his brothers outside. ²³ Then 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.

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

²⁶ Noah also said,

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