Genesis 9-10
GOD’S WORD Translation
God Blesses Noah and His Sons
9 God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fertile, increase in number, and fill the earth. 2 All the wild animals and all the birds will fear you and be terrified of you. Every creature that crawls on the ground and all the fish in the sea have been put under your control. 3 Everything that lives and moves will be your food. I gave you green plants as food; I now give you everything else.
4 “But you are not to eat meat with blood in it. (Blood is life.) 5 In addition, I will demand your blood for your life. I will demand it from any animal or from any person. I will demand the life of any person ⌞who kills⌟ another person.
6 Whoever sheds human blood,
by humans his blood will be shed,
because in the image of God, God made humans.
7 Be fertile, and increase in number. Spread over the earth, and increase.”
God’s Promise—the Sign of the Rainbow
8 God also said to Noah and his sons, 9 “I am going to make my promise [a] to you, your descendants, 10 and every living being that is with you—birds, domestic animals, and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ship—every living thing on earth. 11 I am making my promise to you. Never again will all life be killed by floodwaters. Never again will there be a flood that destroys the earth.”
12 God said, “This is the sign of the promise I am giving to you and every living being that is with you for generations to come. 13 I will put my rainbow in the clouds to be a sign of my promise to the earth. 14 Whenever I form clouds over the earth, a rainbow will appear in the clouds. 15 Then I will remember my promise to you and every living animal. Never again will water become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember my everlasting promise to every living animal on earth.”
17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the promise I am making to all life on earth.”
Noah Curses Canaan but Blesses Shem and Japheth
18 Noah’s sons, who came out of the ship, were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 19 These were Noah’s three sons. From them the whole earth was populated. Ham was the father of Canaan.[b]
20 Noah, a farmer, was the first person to plant a vineyard. 21 He drank some wine, got drunk, and lay naked inside his tent. 22 Ham, father of Canaan, saw his father naked. So he went outside and told his two brothers.
23 Shem and Japheth took a blanket and laid it over their shoulders. Then they walked in backwards and covered their father’s naked body. They turned their faces away so that they didn’t see their father naked.
24 When Noah sobered up, he found out what his youngest son had done to him. 25 So he said,
“Canaan is cursed!
He will be the lowest slave to his brothers.
26 Praise the Lord, the God of Shem!
Canaan will be his slave.
27 May God expand the territory of Japheth.[c]
May he live in the tents of Shem.
Canaan will be his slave.”
28 Noah lived 350 years after the flood. 29 Noah lived a total of 950 years; then he died.
The 14 Descendants of Japheth(A)
10 This is the account of Noah’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their descendants. Shem, Ham and Japheth had children after the flood.
2 Japheth’s descendants were
Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.
3 Gomer’s descendants were
Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.
4 Javan’s descendants were
the people from Elishah, Tarshish, Cyprus, and Rhodes.[d]
5 From these descendants the people of the coastlands spread into their own countries. Each nation had its own language and families.
The 30 Descendants of Ham(B)
6 Ham’s descendants were
Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan.
7 Cush’s descendants were
Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca.
Raamah’s descendants were
Sheba and Dedan.
8 Cush was the father of Nimrod, the first mighty warrior on the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter whom the Lord blessed. That’s why people used to say, “⌞He’s⌟ like Nimrod, a mighty hunter whom the Lord blessed.” 10 The first ⌞cities⌟ in his kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh in Shinar [Babylonia]. 11 He went from that land to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, 12 and Resen, the great city between Nineveh and Calah.
13 Egypt was the ancestor of
the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, 14 Pathrusites, Casluhites (from whom the Philistines came), and the Caphtorites.
15 Canaan was the father of
Sidon his firstborn, then Heth, 16 also the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, 17 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, 18 the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites.
Later the Canaanite families scattered. 19 The border of the Canaanites extended from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim as far as Lasha.
20 These were Ham’s descendants by families and languages within their countries and nations.
The 26 Descendants of Shem(C)
21 Shem, Japheth’s older brother, also had children. ⌞Shem was⌟ the ancestor of all the sons of Eber.
22 Shem’s descendants were
Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram.
23 Aram’s descendants were
Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash.
24 Arpachshad was the father of Shelah,
and Shelah was the father of Eber.
25 Two sons were born to Eber.
The name of the one was Peleg [Division], because in his day the earth was divided.
His brother’s name was Joktan.
26 Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. These were Joktan’s sons. 30 The region where they lived extended from Mesha toward Sephar in the eastern mountains.
31 These were Shem’s descendants by families and languages within their countries according to their nations.
32 These were the families of Noah’s sons listed by their genealogies, nation by nation. From these ⌞descendants⌟ the nations spread over the earth after the flood.
Footnotes
- 9:9 Or “covenant.”
- 9:19 The second part of verse 18 (in Hebrew) has been placed just after verse 19 to express the complex Hebrew sentence structure more clearly in English.
- 9:27 There is a play on words here between the Hebrew yapht (May God expand) and yepheth (Japheth ).
- 10:4 1 Chronicles 1:7, Samaritan Pentateuch, Greek; Masoretic Text “the Dodanim.”
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