Genesis 9

¹ God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.

² Be the terror and the dread of all the wild beasts and all the birds of heaven, of everything that crawls on the ground and all the fish of the sea; they are handed over to you.

³ Every living and crawling thing shall provide food for you, no less than the foliage of plants. I give you everything,

⁴ with this exception: you must not eat flesh with life, that is to say blood, in it.

⁵ I will demand an account of your life-blood. I will demand an account from every beast and from man. I will demand an account of every man’s life from his fellow men.

⁶ ‘He who sheds man’s blood, shall have his blood shed by man, for in the image of God man was made.

⁷ ‘As for you, be fruitful, multiply, teem over the earth and be lord of it.’

⁸ God spoke to Noah and his sons,

⁹ ‘See, I establish my Covenant with you, and with your descendants after you;

¹⁰ also with every living creature to be found with you, birds, cattle and every wild beast with you: everything that came out of the ark, everything that lives on the earth.

¹¹ I establish my Covenant with you: no thing of flesh shall be swept away again by the waters of the flood. There shall be no flood to destroy the earth again.’

¹² God said, ‘Here is the sign of the Covenant I make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all generations:

¹³ I set my bow in the clouds and it shall be a sign of the Covenant between me and the earth.

¹⁴ When I gather the clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds,

¹⁵ I will recall the Covenant between myself and you and every living creature of every kind. And so the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all things of flesh.

¹⁶ When the bow is in the clouds I shall see it and call to mind the lasting Covenant between God and every living creature of every kind that is found on the earth.’

¹⁷ God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the Covenant I have established between myself and every living thing that is found on the earth.

¹⁸ The sons of Noah who went out from the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth; Ham is the ancestor of the Canaanites.

¹⁹ These three were Noah’s sons, and from these the whole earth was peopled.

²⁰ Noah, a tiller of the soil, was the first to plant the vine.

²¹ He drank some of the wine, and while he was drunk he uncovered himself inside his tent.

²² Ham, Canaan’s ancestor, saw his father’s nakedness, and told his two brothers outside.

²³ Shem and Japheth took a cloak and they both put it over their shoulders, and walking backwards, covered their father’s nakedness; they kept their faces turned away, and did not see their father’s nakedness.

²⁴ When Noah awoke from his stupor he learned what his youngest son had done to him.

²⁵ And he said: ‘Accursed be Canaan. He shall be his brothers’ meanest slave.’

²⁶ He added: ‘Blessed be Yahweh, God of Shem, let Canaan be his slave!

²⁷ May God extend Japheth, may he live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his slave!’

²⁸ After the flood Noah lived three hundred and fifty years.

²⁹ In all, Noah’s life lasted nine hundred and fifty years; then he died.