Genesis 8:20-9:7

English Standard Version

God's Covenant with Noah

²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. ²¹ And when the Lord smelled ^(A)the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again ^(B)curse^[a] the ground because of man, for ^(C)the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. ^(D)Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. ^22 (E)While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, ^(F)day and night, shall not cease.”

9 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ^(G)“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. ^2 (H)The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. ^3 (I)Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And ^(J)as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. ⁴ But you shall not eat flesh with its ^(K)life, that is, its blood. ⁵ And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: ^(L)from every beast I will require it and ^(M)from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

⁷ And you,^[b] be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”