Covenant of the Rainbow

9 Then God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “^(A)Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. ² The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every animal of the earth and on every bird of the sky; on everything that crawls on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea. They are handed over to you. ³ Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I have given everything to you, ^(B)as I gave the green plant. ⁴ But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, ^(C)its blood. ⁵ I certainly will require ^[a](D)your lifeblood; ^[b](E)from every animal I will require it. And ^[c]from every person, ^[d]from every man as his brother I will require the life of a person.

⁸ Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, ⁹ “Now behold, ^(I)I Myself am establishing My covenant with you, and with your ^[f]descendants after you; ¹⁰ and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the livestock, and every animal of the earth with you; of all that comes out of the ark, every animal of the earth. ¹¹ I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall ^(J)never again be eliminated by the waters of a flood, ^(K)nor shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.” ¹² God said, “This is ^(L)the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for ^[g]all future generations; ¹³ I have set My ^(M)rainbow in the cloud, and it shall ^[h]serve as a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. ¹⁴ It shall come about, when I make a cloud appear over the earth, that the rainbow will be seen in the cloud, ¹⁵ and ^(N)I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and ^(O)never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. ¹⁶ When the rainbow is in the cloud, then I will look at it, to remember the ^(P)everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” ¹⁷ And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

¹⁸ Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and ^(Q)Ham was the father of Canaan. ¹⁹ These three were the sons of Noah, and ^(R)from these the whole earth was ^[i]populated.

²⁰ Then Noah began ^[j]farming and planted a vineyard. ²¹ He drank some of the wine and ^(S)became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. ²² Ham, the father of Canaan, ^(T)saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. ²³ But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it on both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were ^[k]turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. ²⁴ When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. ²⁵ So he said,

²⁶ He also said,

²⁸ Noah lived 350 years after the flood. ²⁹ So all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

The Lord’s Glory and Mankind’s Dignity.

For the music director; on the Gittith. A Psalm of David.

Herod Slaughters Babies

¹⁶ Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by ^(A)the magi, he became very enraged, and sent men and ^(B)killed all the boys who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity ^[a]who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi. ¹⁷ Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:

¹⁹ But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord *^(D)appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, and said, ²⁰ “Get up, take the Child and His mother, and go to the land of Israel; for those who sought the Child’s life are dead.” ²¹ So ^[b]Joseph got up, took the Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel. ²² But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Then after being ^(E)warned by God in a dream, he left for the regions of Galilee, ²³ and came and settled in a city called ^(F)Nazareth. This happened so that what was spoken through the prophets would be fulfilled: “He will be called a ^(G)Nazarene.”