Genesis 8

The Flood Ends

1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild and tame animals with him in the boat. He made a wind blow over the earth, and the water went down.2 The underground springs stopped flowing, and the clouds in the sky stopped pouring down rain.3-4 The water that covered the earth began to go down. After one hundred fifty days it had gone down so much that the boat touched land again. It came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month.5 The water continued to go down so that by the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains could be seen.

6 
Forty days later Noah opened the window he had made in the boat, and7 he sent out a raven. It flew here and there until the water had dried up from the earth.8 Then Noah sent out a dove to find out if the water had dried up from the ground.9 The dove could not find a place to land because water still covered the earth, so it came back to the boat. Noah reached out his hand and took the bird and brought it back into the boat.10 After seven days Noah again sent out the dove from the boat,11 and that evening it came back to him with a fresh olive leaf in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the ground was almost dry.12 Seven days later he sent the dove out again, but this time it did not come back.13 When Noah was six hundred and one years old, in the first day of the first month of that year, the water was dried up from the land. Noah removed the covering of the boat and saw that the land was dry.14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was completely dry.15 Then God said to Noah,16 “You and your wife, your sons, and their wives should go out of the boat.17 Bring every animal out of the boat with you—the birds, animals, and everything that crawls on the earth. Let them have many young ones so that they might grow in number.”18 So Noah went out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives.19 Every animal, everything that crawls on the earth, and every bird went out of the boat by families.

20 
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of all the clean birds and animals, and he burned them on the altar as offerings to God.21 The Lord was pleased with these sacrifices and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of human beings. Their thoughts are evil even when they are young, but I will never again destroy every living thing on the earth as I did this time.

22 
“As long as the earth continues,
planting and harvest,
cold and hot,
summer and winter,
day and night
will not stop.”

Genesis 9

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.

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.”

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,
“May there be a curse on Canaan!
May he be the lowest slave to his brothers.”

26 
Noah also said,
“May the Lord, the God of Shem, be praised!
May Canaan be Shem’s slave.

27 
May God give more land to Japheth.
May Japheth live in Shem’s tents,
and may Canaan be their slave.”

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

Genesis 10

Nations Grow and Spread

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

Japheth’s Sons

2 

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

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

4 
The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Rodanim.5 Those 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

6 

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

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

8 
Cush also had a descendant named Nimrod, who became a very powerful man on earth.9 He was a great hunter before the Lord, which is why people say someone is “like Nimrod, a great hunter before the Lord.”10 At first Nimrod’s kingdom covered Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh in the land of Babylonia.11 From there he went to Assyria, where he built the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, and Calah.12 He also built Resen, the great city between Nineveh and Calah.13 Mizraim was the father of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites,14 Pathrusites, Casluhites, and the people of Crete. (The Philistines came from the Casluhites.)15 Canaan was the father of Sidon, his first son, and of Heth.16 He was also the father of the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites,17 Hivites, Arkites, Sinites,18 Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites. The families of the Canaanites scattered.19 Their land reached from Sidon to Gerar as far as Gaza, and then to Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.

20 
All 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

21 

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

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

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

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

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

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

32 
This 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.