Beginning
The deep water goes away
8 Then God thought of Noah, and all the wild animals and the farm animals that were with him in the ship. He caused a wind to blow over the earth. As a result, the water began to go down. 2 Streams of water stopped coming up from below the earth. Rain stopped coming down from the sky. 3 The deep water continued to go down for 150 days. 4 On the 17th day of the seventh month, the ship stopped on the ground. It was sitting on the top of Ararat mountains. 5 The water continued to go down until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains appeared above the water.
6 After 40 more days, Noah opened a window in the ship. 7 He sent a raven to fly away. The raven flew away from the ship and then it returned. It continued to do this until the earth was dry.
8 Then Noah sent out a dove. He wanted to see if the water had gone away from the top of the ground. 9 But the dove could not find anywhere to stand. Water still covered all the ground. So it returned to Noah in the ship. Noah put out his hand and took the dove back into the ship. 10 He waited for seven days. Then he sent the dove out of the ship again. 11 The dove returned to Noah in the evening. It carried a fresh leaf from an olive tree in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the water had gone down. 12 He waited for seven more days. Then he sent the dove out again. This time, it did not return to Noah.[a]
13 Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the first month, the water that had covered the earth was now gone. The ground had become dry. Noah made a hole in the roof of the ship and he looked around. He saw that the top of the ground was dry. 14 By the 27th day of the second month, the earth had become completely dry.
15 God said to Noah, 16 ‘Come out of the ship. Bring your wife, your sons and their wives with you. 17 Bring every different kind of living animal out of the ship. Bring out the birds, the animals, and the living things that move across the ground. Now they may give birth to young ones again. They can grow in number all over the earth.’
18 Noah went out of the ship, together with his wife, his sons and their wives. 19 All the living animals also went out of the ship. The birds and the living things that move across the ground all went out. Every different kind of animal came out of the ship, each of them in its own group.
God makes a promise to Noah
20 Then Noah built an altar to make sacrifices to the Lord. He took one from each kind of clean animal and clean bird. He offered them to the Lord as sacrifices which he burned on the altar.[b]
21 The Lord smelled the sacrifice and it made him happy. The Lord said to himself, ‘I will never curse the ground again because of the bad things that people do. From the time that they are children, they want to do bad things. But I will never again destroy everything that breathes, as I have done this time.
22 As long as the earth continues to be here,
the time for people to plant seeds will come each year.
The time for harvest will come each year.
Times of cold and heat will always come.
Summer and winter will always come.
Day and night will never stop.’[c]
God's covenant with Noah
9 God blessed Noah and his sons. He said to them, ‘Give birth to many children so that you become very many people. Your descendants will live all over the earth. 2 All the animals and all the birds will be afraid of you. You have authority over them. You also have authority over all the living things that move across the ground and all the fish in the sea. 3 You may now eat anything that lives and moves. Before, I gave you the green plants to eat. Now I give you everything to eat as your food.
4 But you must not eat meat that still has the blood of life in it.
5 If any person or animal kills a human, I will certainly punish them. Their punishment will be death.
6 God made people so that they were like himself.[d]
So if anyone kills a human,
another human must kill him.
7 But as for you, you should give birth to many children so that you become very many people. There will be many people and they will live all over the earth.’
8 God said to Noah and to his sons, 9 ‘I promise you that I will obey the covenant that I am making with you.[e] I promise this to you and to all your descendants. 10 I also promise this to all the animals and birds that came out of the ship with you. That is everything that lives on the earth. 11 This is the covenant that I promise to keep: I will never cause water to destroy all living things on the earth again. Deep water will never again come again to destroy the earth.’
12 Then God said, ‘I will show you clearly that I have made this covenant with you, and with every living animal. I will keep this promise for ever, for as long as people live on the earth. 13 I have put my rainbow among the clouds in the sky. It will show you clearly that I have made this covenant with everything on the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth, a rainbow will sometimes appear. 15 Then I will remember the covenant that I have made with you and with all the different kinds of living things. Never again will the water become so deep that it destroys everything that lives. 16 When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember my covenant. It is a promise that I have made with every kind of living thing on the earth.’
17 Then God said to Noah, ‘The rainbow will show you that I will certainly keep my promise. I will keep my covenant that is between me and everything that lives on the earth.’
Noah's sons
18 The names of Noah's sons were Shem, Ham and Japheth. They all came out of the ship with Noah. Ham later became the father of a son called Canaan. 19 All the people who live on the earth are descendants of Noah's three sons.
20 Noah was a farmer. He was the first person to plant vines.
21 He used the grapes to make wine. One day, he drank some of the wine and he became drunk. He lay inside his tent and he slept. He was not wearing any clothes. 22 Canaan's father, Ham, saw that Noah was not wearing any clothes. He went out of the tent. He told his two brothers what he had seen. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took Noah's coat and they put it between their shoulders. They walked into Noah's tent with their backs to Noah. In this way they covered their father with the coat. They looked away from their father so that they did not see him. They did this because Noah was not wearing any clothes.[f]
24 Later, when he was no longer drunk with the wine, Noah woke up. He found out what his youngest son, Ham, had done. 25 He said, ‘I curse Canaan! He will become a slave that must serve his brothers.’
26 Noah also said, ‘I praise the Lord, the God of Shem! Let Canaan become Shem's slave! 27 I pray that God will make the land of Japheth and his descendants grow bigger. I pray that the descendants of Japheth will share good things with Shem. I pray that Canaan will become Japheth's slave.’[g]
28 Noah lived for 350 years after God covered the earth with deep water. 29 In his whole life, Noah lived for 950 years. Then he died.
10 This is the report about Noah's sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and their families.
After the deep water went away, they all had children themselves.
Japheth's family
2 These are the sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras. 3 These are the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah. 4 These are the sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittim people and the Rodanim people.[h]
5 These people lived by the sea. They lived in groups. Each group went to live in a different place. Each group spoke its own language.
Ham's family
6 These are the sons of Ham: Cush, Mizraim, Put and Canaan. 7 These are the sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabteca. These are the sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 8 Cush was also the father of Nimrod. Nimrod became the first brave soldier in the world. 9 The Lord helped Nimrod to be a great hunter. That is why people say, ‘Like Nimrod, a great hunter that the Lord helped.’
10 The first of Nimrod's lands were Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Calneh, in Shinar. 11 From that land he went to Assyria. This is where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir and Calah. 12 He also built Resen. Resen is between Nineveh and Calah, which is a large city. 13 Mizraim was the ancestor of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, 14 Pathrusites, Kasluhites and Caphtorites. The Philistines were descendants of the Kasluhites.[i]
15 Canaan was the father of Sidon, who was born first. Canaan was also the ancestor of the Hittites, 16 Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, 17 Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, 18 Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites. After some time had passed, the Canaanite families separated to different places. 19 The land of Canaan went from Sidon to Gerar, as far as Gaza. It went to Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. 20 These are all descendants of Ham. They lived in groups in their own parts of the land. Each group spoke their own language.
Shem's family
21 Shem also had sons. Shem was Japheth's older brother. All the sons of Eber are descendants of Shem. 22 These are the sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram. 23 These are the sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether and Meshech. 24 Arphaxad was the father of Shelah. Shelah was the father of Eber. 25 Eber had two sons. The name of one son was Peleg. When he was alive, people began to live in different places on the earth. That is why his name was Peleg.[j] Peleg's 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. All those were Joktan's sons. 30 The land where they lived went from Mesha to Sephar. This is in the land with hills in the east. 31 These are the descendants of Shem. They lived in groups in their own parts of the land. Each group spoke their own language.
32 All these people are descendants of Noah's sons, and their children. They went to live in different parts of the earth and their children became different nations. This happened after God covered the earth with water and then the water went away.
The tower in Babel
11 At this time, everyone who lived on the earth spoke one language. They used the same words. 2 People moved to the east. They reached a large flat piece of land called Shinar. They stayed there to live. 3 They said to each other, ‘We should make bricks and cook them until they are hard.’ These people used bricks instead of stones to build houses. They used tar to hold the bricks together, instead of cement.[k]
4 They said, ‘Let us build a city to live in. We should also build a very tall tower. The tower will go up into the heavens. Then we will always be famous. If we do that, we will not have to separate and go to live in different places on the earth.’
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower. He saw that the people had started to build them. 6 The Lord said, ‘Because they all speak the same language, they are able to do this. If they can do this together, they may decide to do whatever they want. 7 Now we must go down to them. We must make their language become confused. Then they will not be able to understand each other.’
8 So the Lord separated the people from one another. They went to live in different lands all over the earth. They stopped building the city for themselves. 9 That is why people called the city Babel.[l] It was because the Lord confused all the people of the world and he gave them different languages to speak. From that time, the Lord separated the people from each other so that they lived in different places all over the earth.
Shem's family
10 This is the report about Shem and his family.
Two years after the deep water went away from the earth, Shem was 100 years old. He became the father of Arphaxad. 11 After Arphaxad was born, Shem lived for 500 years. He had other sons and daughters.
12 When Arphaxad was 35 years old, he became the father of Shelah. 13 After Shelah was born, Arphaxad lived for 403 years. He had other sons and daughters.
14 When Shelah was 30 years old, he became the father of Eber. 15 After Eber was born, Shelah lived for 403 years. He had other sons and daughters.
16 When Eber was 34 years old, he became the father of Peleg. 17 After Peleg was born, Eber lived for 430 years. He had other sons and daughters.
18 When Peleg was 30 years old, he became the father of Reu. 19 After Reu was born, Peleg lived for 209 years. He had other sons and daughters.
20 When Reu was 32 years old, he became the father of Serug. 21 After Serug was born, Reu lived for 207 years. He had other sons and daughters.
22 When Serug was 30 years old, he became the father of Nahor. 23 After Nahor was born, Serug lived for 200 years. He had other sons and daughters.
24 When Nahor was 29 years old, he became the father of Terah. 25 After Terah was born, Nahor lived for 119 years. He had other sons and daughters.
26 After Terah was 70 years old, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.
Terah's family
27 This is the report about Terah and his family.
Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. Haran became the father of Lot. 28 While Terah was still alive, his son, Haran, died. Haran died in Ur, the land of the Chaldeans. That was where Haran had been born.
29 Abram married Sarai. Nahor married Milcah. Milcah was Haran's daughter. Haran was the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 Sarai could not give birth to children. She did not have any children.
31 Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot. (Lot was Haran's son.) Terah also took Abram's wife Sarai. They all left Ur, the land of the Chaldeans. They began to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they stayed there. 32 Terah lived for 205 years. Then he died in Haran.
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