Genesis 8-11

^{Genesis 8}

 ^{1-3 Then God turned his attention to Noah and all the wild animals and farm animals with him on the ship. God caused the wind to blow and the floodwaters began to go down. The underground springs were shut off, the windows of Heaven closed and the rain quit. Inch by inch the water lowered. After 150 days the worst was over.  4-6 On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ship landed on the Ararat mountain range. The water kept going down until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains came into view. After forty days Noah opened the window that he had built into the ship.
 7-9 He sent out a raven; it flew back and forth waiting for the floodwaters to dry up. Then he sent a dove to check on the flood conditions, but it couldn't even find a place to perch—water still covered the Earth. Noah reached out and caught it, brought it back into the ship.
 10-11 He waited seven more days and sent out the dove again. It came back in the evening with a freshly picked olive leaf in its beak. Noah knew that the flood was about finished.
 12 He waited another seven days and sent the dove out a third time. This time it didn't come back.
 13-14 In the six-hundred-first year of Noah's life, on the first day of the first month, the flood had dried up. Noah opened the hatch of the ship and saw dry ground. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the Earth was completely dry.
 15-17 God spoke to Noah: "Leave the ship, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives. And take all the animals with you, the whole menagerie of birds and mammals and crawling creatures, all that brimming prodigality of life, so they can reproduce and flourish on the Earth."
 18-19 Noah disembarked with his sons and wife and his sons' wives. Then all the animals, crawling creatures, birds—every creature on the face of the Earth—left the ship family by family.
 20-21 Noah built an altar to God. He selected clean animals and birds from every species and offered them as burnt offerings on the altar. God smelled the sweet fragrance and thought to himself, "I'll never again curse the ground because of people. I know they have this bent toward evil from an early age, but I'll never again kill off everything living as I've just done.
 22 For as long as Earth lasts,
      planting and harvest, cold and heat,
   Summer and winter, day and night
      will never stop."} 

^{Genesis 9}

 ^{1-4 God blessed Noah and his sons: He said, "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill the Earth! Every living creature—birds, animals, fish—will fall under your spell and be afraid of you. You're responsible for them. All living creatures are yours for food; just as I gave you the plants, now I give you everything else. Except for meat with its lifeblood still in it—don't eat that.  5 "But your own lifeblood I will avenge; I will avenge it against both animals and other humans.
 6-7 Whoever sheds human blood,
      by humans let his blood be shed,
   Because God made humans in his image
      reflecting God's very nature.
   You're here to bear fruit, reproduce,
      lavish life on the Earth, live bountifully!"
 8-11 Then God spoke to Noah and his sons: "I'm setting up my covenant with you including your children who will come after you, along with everything alive around you—birds, farm animals, wild animals—that came out of the ship with you. I'm setting up my covenant with you that never again will everything living be destroyed by floodwaters; no, never again will a flood destroy the Earth."
 12-16 God continued, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I'm putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I'll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I'll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth."
 17 And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I've set up between me and everything living on the Earth."
 18-19 The sons of Noah who came out of the ship were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah; from these three the whole Earth was populated.
 20-23 Noah, a farmer, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank from its wine, got drunk and passed out, naked in his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw that his father was naked and told his two brothers who were outside the tent. Shem and Japheth took a cloak, held it between them from their shoulders, walked backward and covered their father's nakedness, keeping their faces turned away so they did not see their father's exposed body.
 24-27 When Noah woke up with his hangover, he learned what his youngest son had done. He said,
   Cursed be Canaan! A slave of slaves,
      a slave to his brothers!
   Blessed be God, the God of Shem,
      but Canaan shall be his slave.
   God prosper Japheth,
      living spaciously in the tents of Shem.
   But Canaan shall be his slave.
 28-29 Noah lived another 350 years following the flood. He lived a total of 950 years. And he died.}

 

^{Genesis 10}

^{The Family Tree of Noah's Sons}

 ^{1 This is the family tree of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. After the flood, they themselves had sons.  2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, Tiras. 3 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, Togarmah.
 4-5 The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, Rodanim. The seafaring peoples developed from these, each in its own place by family, each with its own language.
 6 The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, Canaan.
 7 The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, Sabteca.
   The sons of Raamah: Sheba, Dedan.
 8-12 Cush also had Nimrod. He was the first great warrior on Earth. He was a great hunter before God. There was a saying, "Like Nimrod, a great hunter before God." His kingdom got its start with Babel; then Erech, Akkad, and Calneh in the country of Shinar. From there he went up to Asshur and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and the great city Calah.
 13-14 Egypt was ancestor to the Ludim, the Anamim, the Lehabim, the Naphtuhim, the Pathrusim, the Casluhim (the origin of the Philistines), and the Kaphtorim.
 15-19 Canaan had Sidon his firstborn, Heth, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Later the Canaanites spread out, going from Sidon toward Gerar, as far south as Gaza, and then east all the way over to Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and on to Lasha.
 20 These are the descendants of Ham by family, language, country, and nation.
 21 Shem, the older brother of Japheth, also had sons. Shem was ancestor to all the children of Eber.
 22 The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.
 23 The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, Meshech.
 24-25 Arphaxad had Shelah and Shelah had Eber. Eber had two sons, Peleg (so named because in his days the human race divided) and Joktan.
 26-30 Joktan had Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab—all sons of Joktan. Their land goes from Mesha toward Sephar as far as the mountain ranges in the east.
 31 These are the descendants of Shem by family, language, country, and nation.
 32 This is the family tree of the sons of Noah as they developed into nations. From them nations developed all across the Earth after the flood.}

 

^{Genesis 11}

^{"God Turned Their Language into 'Babble'"}

 <sup>1-2 At one time, the whole Earth spoke the same language. It so happened that as they moved out of the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled down.  3 They said to one another, "Come, let's make bricks and fire them well." They used brick for stone and tar for mortar.
 4 Then they said, "Come, let's build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches Heaven. Let's make ourselves famous so we won't be scattered here and there across the Earth."
 5 God came down to look over the city and the tower those people had built.
 6-9 God took one look and said, "One people, one language; why, this is only a first step. No telling what they'll come up with next—they'll stop at nothing! Come, we'll go down and garble their speech so they won't understand each other." Then God scattered them from there all over the world. And they had to quit building the city. That's how it came to be called Babel, because there God turned their language into "babble." From there God scattered them all over the world.

10-11 This is the story of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he had Arphaxad. It was two years after the flood. After he had Arphaxad, he lived 500 more years and had other sons and daughters.
 12-13 When Arphaxad was thirty-five years old, he had Shelah. After Arphaxad had Shelah, he lived 403 more years and had other sons and daughters.
 14-15 When Shelah was thirty years old, he had Eber. After Shelah had Eber, he lived 403 more years and had other sons and daughters.
 16-17 When Eber was thirty-four years old, he had Peleg. After Eber had Peleg, he lived 430 more years and had other sons and daughters.
 18-19 When Peleg was thirty years old, he had Reu. After he had Reu, he lived 209 more years and had other sons and daughters.
 20-21 When Reu was thirty-two years old, he had Serug. After Reu had Serug, he lived 207 more years and had other sons and daughters.
 22-23 When Serug was thirty years old, he had Nahor. After Serug had Nahor, he lived 200 more years and had other sons and daughters.
 24-25 When Nahor was twenty-nine years old, he had Terah. After Nahor had Terah, he lived 119 more years and had other sons and daughters.
 26 When Terah was seventy years old, he had Abram, Nahor, and Haran.</sup>

^{The Family Tree of Terah}

<sup>27-28 This is the story of Terah. Terah had Abram, Nahor, and Haran.     Haran had Lot. Haran died before his father, Terah, in the country of his family, Ur of the Chaldees.
 29 Abram and Nahor each got married. Abram's wife was Sarai; Nahor's wife was Milcah, the daughter of his brother Haran. Haran had two daughters, Milcah and Iscah.
 30 Sarai was barren; she had no children.
 31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (Haran's son), and Sarai his daughter-in-law (his son Abram's wife) and set out with them from Ur of the Chaldees for the land of Canaan. But when they got as far as Haran, they settled down there.
 32 Terah lived 205 years. He died in Haran.

(Genesis 8-11, The Message)


God saved Noah and his family from the otherwise total destruction of the Great Flood. He spoke of each one's preciousness to Him (9:5-6), encouraged them to celebrate life, to party!!! (9:1-4, 7) He made an everlasting covenant with them (9:8-17). Life was good; all was set for living happily ever after, right? Wrong; Canaan almost immediately violated his father, setting up apparently life-long conflict with Noah (9:20-27). And shortly thereafter, everybody decided to build themselves a city that God had not decreed, and then that they could make themselves equal to God by building the tower of Babel (11:1-9). God mercifully intervened and thwarted their schemes to make life "work" apart from Him.

They had everything God could possibly offer them to meet every single, solitary one of their needs, but it wasn't good enough, He wasn't enough…or so they thought. So God stood in their way, kept His covenant with them, and continued to pursue them through all their silliness and sinfulness.

I am grateful that He does the same for me.</sup>