Genesis 9

Living Bible

9 God blessed Noah and his sons and told them to have many children and to repopulate the earth.

^2-3 “All wild animals and birds and fish will be afraid of you,” God told him; “for I have placed them in your power, and they are yours to use for food, in addition to grain and vegetables. ⁴ But never eat animals unless their life-blood has been drained off. ^5-6 And murder is forbidden. Man-killing animals must die, and any man who murders shall be killed; for to kill a man is to kill one made like God. ⁷ Yes, have many children and repopulate the earth and subdue it.”

⁸ Then God told Noah and his sons, ^9-11 “I solemnly promise you and your children^[a] and the animals you brought with you—all these birds and cattle and wild animals—that I will never again send another flood to destroy the earth. ¹² And I seal this promise with this sign: ¹³ I have placed my rainbow in the clouds as a sign of my promise until the end of time, to you and to all the earth. ¹⁴ When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will be seen in the clouds, ¹⁵ and I will remember my promise to you and to every being, that never again will the floods come and destroy all life. ^16-17 For I will see the rainbow in the cloud and remember my eternal promise to every living being on the earth.”

¹⁸ The names of Noah’s three sons were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham is the ancestor of the Canaanites.)^{[b] 19} From these three sons of Noah came all the nations of the earth.

^20-21 Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard, and he made wine. One day as he was drunk and lay naked in his tent, ²² Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and went outside and told his two brothers. ²³ Then Shem and Japheth took a robe and held it over their shoulders and, walking backwards into the tent, let it fall across their father to cover his nakedness as they looked the other way. ^24-25 When Noah awoke from his drunken stupor, and learned what had happened and what Ham, his younger son, had done, he cursed Ham’s descendants:^[c]

^26-27 Then he said,

²⁸ Noah lived another 350 years after the flood ²⁹ and was 950 years old at his death.