God's covenant with Noah
1 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.
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. 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.’
9:9A covenant is a special agreement that God makes with people. He promises that he will help them in a certain way.
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.’
