1 God blessed Noah and his sons and he said to them, “You will have many children, so that your descendants can live all over the world. 2 All the animals, birds and fish will be afraid of you. And you will rule over them. 3 You can eat them now. I gave you plants for food before, but now I am giving you these animals and birds and fish, so that you can eat meat as well as other food. 4 But you must not eat meat with the blood still in it. You mustn't eat it, because the life is in the blood.

5 “If one of you kills another person, other people will punish you. And if a dangerous animal kills you, then I will pay it back and kill it. 6 I have made you all like myself, and so if you hit another person and he dies, then someone else will kill you.

7 “You must have many children so that your descendants will live all over the world.”

8 God also said to them, 9 “Today I am making my covenant with you and with your descendants. 10 It is for all of you and also for everything that lives and breathes here today, everything that you brought out of the boat with you. 11 I am telling you these very important words today. Listen! From now on I will never do again what I have done in this world. I will never again send a lot of rain and flood the whole earth and destroy all the people and birds and animals.

12-13 “Now I will show you that I will never change my covenant. It will last forever for you and for everything that breathes. I will put my rainbow in the clouds for you. When you see it you will think about my covenant, and later when your children and then their children see it, they will think about it too. That rainbow will be a sign. 14 When I cover the sky and put a rainbow in the clouds, 15 I too will think about my promise that I am telling you today. It is also for the animals and the birds that live in the world now. I am telling you today that they will not drown again.

16-17 “So when you see the rainbow and when I see it too, I will think about my covenant. The rainbow will be a sign that it won't change, it will always be there for you today and afterwards for all people and fish, animals and birds who live in this world.”

18 The three sons of Noah who went into the boat and came out again were called Shem, Ham and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. 19 Noah's sons were the ancestors of all other people after the flood ended.

20 Noah grew food and he was the first to grow grapes. 21 He made some wine from the grapes and he and his family drank it. One day Noah drank some of the wine he had made and became drunk. He took off his clothes and slept naked in his tent.

22 Ham, the father of Canaan, came to his father and when he saw him naked he went out and told his two brothers.

23 Noah's two older sons took a cloth over to him. They held it behind them and walked backwards to where their father was lying. They covered him with the cloth because they didn't want to see their father naked. When they had put the cloth over their father they went away.

24 Then Noah became sober again. When he heard what his youngest son had done he was very angry. 25 He cursed Ham and his descendants and said,