Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

(v) ⁸ God spoke to Noach and his sons with him; he said, ⁹ “As for me — I am herewith establishing my covenant with you, with your descendants after you, ¹⁰ and with every living creature that is with you — the birds, the livestock and every wild animal with you, all going out of the ark, every animal on earth. ¹¹ I will establish my covenant with you that never again will all living beings be destroyed by the waters of a flood, and there will never again be a flood to destroy the earth.” ¹² God added, “Here is the sign of the covenant I am making between myself and you and every living creature with you, for all generations to come: ¹³ I am putting my rainbow in the cloud — it will be there as a sign of the covenant between myself and the earth. ¹⁴ Whenever I bring clouds over the earth, and the rainbow is seen in the cloud; ¹⁵ I will remember my covenant which is between myself and you and every living creature of any kind; and the water will never again become a flood to destroy all living beings. ¹⁶ The rainbow will be in the cloud; so that when I look at it, I will remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of any kind on the earth.”

¹⁷ God said to Noach, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between myself and every living creature on the earth.”

³⁹ When day broke, they didn’t recognize the land; but they noticed a bay with a sand beach, where they decided to run the ship aground if they could. ⁴⁰ So they cut away the anchors and left them in the sea; at the same time, they loosened the ropes that held the rudders out of the water. Then they hoisted the foresail to the wind and headed for the beach. ⁴¹ But they encountered a place where two currents meet, and ran the vessel aground on the sandbar there. The bow stuck and would not move, while the pounding of the surf began to break up the stern.

⁴² At this point the soldiers’ thought was to kill the prisoners, so that none of them would swim off and escape. ⁴³ But the officer, wanting to save Sha’ul, kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to throw themselves overboard first and head for shore, ⁴⁴ and the rest to use planks or whatever they could find from the ship. Thus it was that everyone reached land safely.