Yahweh Establishes His Covenant with Noah and His Descendants

8:20-9:17

20 Then Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and he took from every clean animal and from every clean bird, and he offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma, and Yahweh said in his heart, “Never again will I curse the ground because of mankind, though the inclination of mankind’s hearts is evil from their youth. And never again will I strike every living thing as I have done.

22 While all of the days of the earth continue,

seed time and harvest,

and cold and heat,

and summer and winter,

and day and night

will not cease.”

9 Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 And the fear of you and the dread of you will be on every living thing of the earth, including on every bird of the sky, on everything that moves on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are given. 3 Every moving creature that lives will be for you for food. Just as the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you must not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 And surely I will demand your blood for your lives. From the hand of every living thing I will demand it, and from the hand of mankind; from the hand of a man who kills his brother, I will demand the life of the man.

6 The one shedding the blood of a man,

by mankind his blood must be shed,

because in the image of God

he made mankind.

7 “And you, be fruitful and multiply. Abound on the earth and multiply on it.”

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, 9 “And I, behold, I am establishing my covenant with you and with your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you: with the birds, with the livestock, and with every living thing of the earth with you, from all that came out of the ark to every living thing of the earth. 11 And I am establishing my covenant with you that never again will all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

12 Then God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I am making between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for generations forever: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 And it will be when I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow is seen in the clouds, 15 then I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and never again will waters become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 So the rainbow will be in the clouds, and I will see it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature, with all flesh that is on the earth.”

17 Then God said to Noah, “That is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”