Genesis 8-11

GOD’S WORD Translation

God Remembers Noah

8 God remembered Noah and all the wild and domestic animals with him in the ship. So God made a wind blow over the earth, and the water started to go down. ² The deep springs and the sky had been shut, and the rain had stopped pouring. ³ The water began to recede from the land. At the end of 150 days the water had decreased. ⁴ On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ship came to rest in the mountains of Ararat. ⁵ The water kept decreasing until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains appeared.

⁶ After 40 more days Noah opened the window he had made in the ship ⁷ and sent out a raven. It kept flying back and forth until the water on the land had dried up. ⁸ Next, he sent out a dove to see if the water was gone from the surface of the ground. ⁹ The dove couldn’t find a place to land because the water was still all over the earth. So it came back to Noah in the ship. He reached out and brought the dove back into the ship. ¹⁰ He waited seven more days and again sent the dove out of the ship. ¹¹ The dove came to him in the evening, and in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf. Then Noah knew that the water was gone from the earth. ¹² He waited seven more days and sent out the dove again, but it never came back to him.

¹³ By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water on the land had dried up. Noah opened the top of the ship, looked out, and saw the surface of the ground. ¹⁴ By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was dry.

¹⁵ Then God spoke to Noah, ¹⁶ “Come out of the ship with your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives. ¹⁷ Bring out every animal that’s with you: birds, domestic animals, and every creature that crawls on the earth. Be fertile, increase in number, and spread over the earth.”

¹⁸ So Noah came out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹ Every animal, crawling creature, and bird—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the ship, one kind after another.

²⁰ Noah built an altar to the Lord. On it he made a burnt offering of each type of clean ^[a] animal and clean bird. ²¹ The Lord smelled the soothing aroma. He said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of humans, even though from birth their hearts are set on nothing but evil. I will never again kill every living creature as I have just done.

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.

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 ^[b] 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.^[c]

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,

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.

Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.

Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.

the people from Elishah, Tarshish, Cyprus, and Rhodes.^[e]

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)

Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan.

Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca.

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.

the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, ¹⁴ Pathrusites, Casluhites (from whom the Philistines came), and the Caphtorites.

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.

Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram.

Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash.

and Shelah was the father of 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.

The Tower of Babel

11 The whole world had one language with a common vocabulary. ² As people moved toward the east,^[f] they found a plain in Shinar [Babylonia] and settled there.

³ They said to one another, “Let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used bricks as stones and tar ^[g] as mortar.

⁴ Then they said, “Let’s build a city for ourselves and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves so that we won’t become scattered all over the face of the earth.”

⁵ The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the descendants of Adam were building. ⁶ The Lord said, “They are one people with one language. This is only the beginning of what they will do! Now nothing they plan to do will be too difficult for them. ⁷ Let us go down there and mix up their language so that they won’t understand each other.”

⁸ So the Lord scattered them all over the face of the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ This is why it was named Babel, because there the Lord turned the language of the whole earth into babble. From that place the Lord scattered them all over the face of the earth.

The Ten Descendants of Shem—Shem to Terah^(D)

¹⁰ This is the account of Shem and his descendants. Two years after the flood when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arpachshad. ¹¹ After he became the father of Arpachshad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹² Arpachshad was 35 years old when he became the father of Shelah. ¹³ After he became the father of Shelah, Arpachshad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁴ Shelah was 30 years old when he became the father of Eber. ¹⁵ After he became the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁶ Eber was 34 years old when he became the father of Peleg. ¹⁷ After he became the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁸ Peleg was 30 years old when he became the father of Reu. ¹⁹ After he became the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁰ Reu was 32 years old when he became the father of Serug. ²¹ After he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

²² Serug was 30 years old when he became the father of Nahor. ²³ After he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁴ Nahor was 29 years old when he became the father of Terah. ²⁵ After he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

²⁶ Terah was 70 years old when he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Terah Moves to Haran

²⁷ This is the account of Terah and his descendants. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran was the father of Lot. ²⁸ While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, his native land. ²⁹ Both Abram and Nahor married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah, daughter of Haran. (Haran was the father of Milcah and Iscah.) ³⁰ Sarai was not able to have children.

³¹ Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (son of Haran), and his daughter-in-law Sarai, wife of his son Abram. They set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. When they came as far as Haran, they stayed there. ³² Terah lived 205 years and died in Haran.