The Holy Bible – Knox Translation
The Book of Genesis
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Chapter 9
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And God pronounced his blessing on Noe and his sons; Increase, he said, and multiply, and fill the earth.
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All the beasts of earth, and the winged things of the sky, and the creeping things of earth, are to go in fear and dread of you, and I give you dominion over all the fishes of the sea.
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This creation that lives and moves is to provide food for you; I make it all over to you, by the same title as the herbs that have growth.
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Only, you must not eat the flesh with the blood still in it.
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The shedder of your own life-blood shall be held to account for it, whether man or beast; whoever takes the life of his brother-man shall answer for it to me.
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Man was made in God’s image, and whoever sheds a man’s blood must shed his own blood in return.✻
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And now, increase and multiply; occupy and fill the earth.
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This, too, God said to Noe, and to Noe’s sons:
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Here is a covenant I will observe with you and with your children after you,
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and with all living creatures, your companions, the birds and the beasts of burden and the cattle that came out of the Ark with you, and the wild beasts besides.
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Never more will the living creation be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again a flood to devastate the world.
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This, God said, shall be the pledge of the promise I am making to you, and to all living creatures, your companions, eternally;
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I will set my bow in the clouds, to be a pledge of my covenant with creation.
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When I veil the sky with clouds, in those clouds my bow shall appear,
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to remind me of my promise to you, and to all the life that quickens mortal things; never shall the waters rise in flood again, and destroy all living creatures.
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There, in the clouds, my bow shall stand, and as I look upon it, I will remember this eternal covenant; God’s covenant with all the life that beats in mortal creatures upon earth.
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Such was the pledge God gave to Noe of his promise to all living things.
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These, then, were the names of Noe’s three sons, who came out of the Ark with him, Sem, Cham and Japheth; and of these, Cham was the ancestor of Chanaan.
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All three were Noe’s sons, and from them the race of mankind overspread the earth.
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And now Noe turned farmer, and on the ground he tilled, he grew a vine.
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So he came to drink wine, and, drunk with it, lay all naked in his tent.
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And Cham, Chanaan’s ancestor, saw how his father’s body lay naked, and went out to tell his two brothers of it;
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whereupon Sem and Japheth spread a cloak over their shoulders, and walked in backwards to cover their father’s nakedness, their faces turned away, so that they never caught sight of his naked body.
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When Noe had slept off his wine, he found out how his younger son had treated him;
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Cursed be Chanaan, he said, he shall be the slave and drudge of his brethren.
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He said, too, Blessed be the Lord God of Sem; may Chanaan be a slave to him.
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May God give Japheth dwelling-space,✻ and let him share the tents of Sem, but let Chanaan be his slave.
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And Noe lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood,
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so that his lifetime, when he came to die, had filled the measure of nine hundred and fifty years.
