1   God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase, and fill the earth. 2   The fear and dread of you shall fall upon all wild animals on earth, on all birds of heaven, on everything that moves upon the ground and all fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. 3   Every creature that lives and moves shall be food for you; I give you them all, as once I gave you all green plants. 4   But you must not eat the flesh with the life, which is the blood, still in it. 5   And further, for your life-blood I will demand satisfaction; from every animal I will require it, and from a man also I will require satisfaction for the death of his fellow-man.

The flood and the tower of Babel

   6   He that sheds the blood of a man,
  for that man his blood shall be shed;
  for in the image of God
  has God made man.

7   But you must be fruitful and increase, swarm throughout the earth and rule ^note over it.’

8    9   God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him: ‘I now make my covenant with you and with your descendants after you, 10   and with every living creature that is with you, all birds and cattle, all the wild animals with you on earth, all that have come out of the ark. ^note 11   I will make my covenant with you: never again shall all living creatures be destroyed by the waters of the flood, never again shall there be a flood to lay waste the earth.’

12   God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I establish between myself and you and every living creature with you, to endless generations:

   13   My bow I set in the cloud,
  sign of the covenant
  between myself and earth.
   14   When I cloud the sky over the earth,
  the bow shall be seen in the cloud.

15   Then will I remember the covenant which I have made between myself and you and living things of every kind. Never again shall the waters become a flood to destroy all living creatures. 16   The bow shall be in the cloud; when I see it, it will remind me of the everlasting covenant between God and living things on earth of every kind.’ 17   God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I make between myself and all that lives on earth.’

18   The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth; Ham was the father of Canaan. 19   These three were the sons of Noah, and their descendants spread over the whole earth.

20    21   Noah, a man of the soil, began the planting of vineyards. He drank some of the wine, became drunk and lay naked inside his tent. 22   When Ham, father of Canaan, saw his father naked, he told his two brothers outside. 23   So Shem and Japheth took a cloak, put it on their shoulders and walked backwards, and so covered their father's naked body; their faces were turned the other way, so that they did not see their father naked. 24   When Noah woke from his drunken sleep, he learnt what his youngest son had done to him, 25   and said:

  ‘Cursed be Canaan,
  slave of slaves
  shall he be to his brothers.’

The flood and the tower of Babel

26   And he continued:

  ‘Bless, O Lord,
  the tents of Shem; ^note
  may Canaan be his slave.
   27   May God extend ^note Japheth's bounds,
  let him dwell in the tents of Shem,
  may Canaan be their slave.’

28    29   After the flood Noah lived for three hundred and fifty years, and he was nine hundred and fifty years old when he died.

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