Genesis 6:9-11:9

Noah and the Flood 9This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.

10Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. 11Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14So make yourself an ark of cypress The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain. wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. That is, about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high or about 135 meters long, 23 meters wide and 14 meters high 16Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit That is, about 18 inches or about 45 centimeters high all around. The meaning of the Hebrew for this clause is uncertain. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.

21You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.” 22Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

1The LORD then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.

4Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”

5And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him. 6Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. 7And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.

10And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth. 11In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

12And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. 13On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. 14They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. 15Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark.

16The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in. 17For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. That is, about 23 feet or about 6.8 meters Or rose more than fifteen cubits, and the mountains were covered 21Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.

23Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. 24The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

1But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. 2Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. 3The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, 4and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

5The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible. 6After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark 7and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. 8Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.

12He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. 13By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.

14By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry. 15Then God said to Noah, 16“Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.

17Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.” 18So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives.

19All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another. 20Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.

21The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though Or humans, for every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. 22“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

God’s Covenant With Noah 1Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. 2The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands.

3Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. 4“But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.

5And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.

6“Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.

7As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.” 8Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9“I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth.

11I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.

16Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

17So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

The Sons of Noah 18The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.)

19These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the whole earth. 20Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded Or soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. 21When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside.

23But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s naked body. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father naked. 24When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him,

25he said, “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.”

26He also said, “Praise be to the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem.

27May God extend Japheth’s Japheth sounds like the Hebrew for extend. territory; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be the slave of Japheth.” 28After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29Noah lived a total of 950 years, and then he died.

The Table of Nations 1This is the account of Shem, Ham and Japheth, Noah’s sons, who themselves had sons after the flood.

The Japhethites 2The sons Sons may mean descendants or successors or nations; also in verses 3, 4, 6, 7, 20-23, 29 and 31. of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek and Tiras.

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

4The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites and the Rodanites. Some manuscripts of the Masoretic Text and Samaritan Pentateuch (see also Septuagint and 1 Chron. 1:7); most manuscripts of the Masoretic Text Dodanites

5(From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with its own language.)

The Hamites 6The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan.

7The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabteka. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 8Cush was the father Father may mean ancestor or predecessor or founder; also in verses 13, 15, 24 and 26. of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth. 9He was a mighty hunter before the LORD ; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD .” 10The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Or Uruk and Akkad—all of them in Shinar. That is, Babylonia 11From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Or Nineveh with its city squares Calah

12and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city.

13Egypt was the father of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites,

14Pathrusites, Kasluhites (from whom the Philistines came) and Caphtorites.

15Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn, Or of the Sidonians, the foremost and of the Hittites, 16Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, 17Hivites, Arkites, Sinites,

18Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites. Later the Canaanite clans scattered

19and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, as far as Lasha.

20These are the sons of Ham by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations.

The Semites 21Sons were also born to Shem, whose older brother was Or Shem, the older brother of Japheth; Shem was the ancestor of all the sons of Eber.

22The sons of Shem: Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram.

23The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether and Meshek. See Septuagint and 1 Chron. 1:17; Hebrew Mash.

24Arphaxad was the father of Hebrew; Septuagint father of Cainan, and Cainan was the father of Shelah, and Shelah the father of Eber.

25Two sons were born to Eber: One was named Peleg, Peleg means division. because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan.

26Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28Obal, Abimael, Sheba,

29Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan.

30The region where they lived stretched from Mesha toward Sephar, in the eastern hill country.

31These are the sons of Shem by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations. 32These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.

The Tower of Babel 1Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

2As people moved eastward, Or from the east; or in the east they found a plain in Shinar That is, Babylonia and settled there. 3They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

4Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” 5But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

7Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” 8So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

9That is why it was called Babel That is, Babylon; Babel sounds like the Hebrew for confused. —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.