Genesis 8:1-11:9

English Standard Version

The Flood Subsides

8 But God ^(A)remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And ^(B)God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. ^2 (C)The fountains of the deep and ^(D)the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, ³ and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end ^(E)of 150 days the waters had abated, ⁴ and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of ^(F)Ararat. ⁵ And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

⁶ At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made ⁷ and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. ⁸ Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. ⁹ But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. ¹⁰ He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. ¹¹ And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. ¹² Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.

¹³ In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. ¹⁴ In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. ¹⁵ Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶ “Go out from the ark, ^(G)you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. ¹⁷ Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and ^(H)be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” ¹⁸ So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. ¹⁹ Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.

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 ^(I)the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again ^(J)curse^[a] the ground because of man, for ^(K)the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. ^(L)Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. ^22 (M)While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, ^(N)day and night, shall not cease.”

9 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ^(O)“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. ^2 (P)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 (Q)Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And ^(R)as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. ⁴ But you shall not eat flesh with its ^(S)life, that is, its blood. ⁵ And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: ^(T)from every beast I will require it and ^(U)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.”

⁸ Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, ⁹ “Behold, ^(X)I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, ¹⁰ and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. ^11 (Y)I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” ¹² And God said, ^(Z)“This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: ¹³ I have set ^(AA)my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴ When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, ^15 (AB)I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. ¹⁶ When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember ^(AC)the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” ¹⁷ God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Noah's Descendants

¹⁸ The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were ^(AD)Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) ¹⁹ These three were the sons of Noah, and ^(AE)from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.^[c]

²⁰ Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.^{[d] 21} He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. ²² And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. ²³ Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness. ²⁴ When Noah awoke from his wine ^(AF)and knew what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵ he said,

²⁶ He also said,

²⁸ After the flood Noah lived 350 years. ²⁹ All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

Nations Descended from Noah

10 These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood.

^2 (AI)The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. ³ The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. ⁴ The sons of Javan: Elishah, ^(AJ)Tarshish, ^(AK)Kittim, and Dodanim. ⁵ From these ^(AL)the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations.

^6 (AM)The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. ⁷ The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. ⁸ Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man.^{[f] 9} He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.” ¹⁰ The beginning of his kingdom was ^(AN)Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in ^(AO)the land of Shinar. ¹¹ From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and ¹² Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. ^13 (AP)Egypt fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, ¹⁴ Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom^[g] the Philistines came), and ^(AQ)Caphtorim.

^15 (AR)Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth, ¹⁶ and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, ¹⁷ the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, ¹⁸ the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the clans of the Canaanites dispersed. ¹⁹ And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. ²⁰ These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

²¹ To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. ²² The ^(AS)sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. ²³ The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. ²⁴ Arpachshad fathered ^(AT)Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber. ^25 (AU)To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg,^[h] for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan. ²⁶ Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, ²⁷ Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, ²⁸ Obal, Abimael, Sheba, ^29 (AV)Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. ³⁰ The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east. ³¹ These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

³² These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, ^(AW)and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.

The Tower of Babel

11 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. ² And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in ^(AX)the land of Shinar and settled there. ³ And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, ^(AY)and bitumen for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower ^(AZ)with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” ⁵ And ^(BA)the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. ⁶ And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, ^(BB)let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” ⁸ So ^(BC)the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. ⁹ Therefore its name was called ^(BD)Babel, because there the Lord confused^[i] the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.