The Daily Audio Bible

The Flood Ends

8 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and tame animals with him in the boat. God made a wind blow over the earth. And the water went down. ² The underground springs stopped flowing. And the clouds in the sky stopped pouring down rain. ^3-4 The water that covered the earth began to go down. After 150 days the water had gone down so much that the boat touched land again. It came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat.^[a] This was on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. ⁵ The water continued to go down. By the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains could be seen.

⁶ Forty days later Noah opened the window he had made in the boat. ⁷ He sent out a raven. It flew here and there until the water had dried up from the earth. ⁸ Then Noah sent out a dove. This was to find out if the water had dried up from the ground. ⁹ The dove could not find a place to land because water still covered the earth. So it came back to the boat. Noah reached out his hand and took the bird. And he brought it back into the boat.

¹⁰ After seven days Noah again sent out the dove from the boat. ¹¹ And that evening it came back to him with a fresh olive leaf in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the ground was almost dry. ¹² Seven days later he sent the dove out again. But this time it did not come back.

¹³ Noah was now 601 years old. It was the first day of the first month of that year. The water was dried up from the land. Noah removed the covering of the boat and saw that the land was dry. ¹⁴ By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was completely dry.

¹⁵ Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶ “You and your wife, your sons and their wives should go out of the boat. ¹⁷ Bring every animal out of the boat with you—the birds, animals and everything that crawls on the earth. Let them have many young ones and let them grow in number.”

¹⁸ So Noah went out with his sons, his wife and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹ Every animal, everything that crawls on the earth and every bird went out of the boat. They left by families.

²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. Noah took some of all the clean birds and animals. And he burned them on the altar as offerings to God. ²¹ The Lord was pleased with these sacrifices. He said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of human beings. Their thoughts are evil even when they are young. But I will never again destroy every living thing on the earth as I did this time.

The New Beginning

9 Then God blessed Noah and his sons. He said to them, “Have many children. Grow in number and fill the earth. ² Every animal on earth and every bird in the sky will respect and fear you. So will every animal that crawls on the ground and every fish in the sea respect and fear you. I have given them to you.

³ “Everything that moves, everything that is alive, is yours for food. Earlier I gave you the green plants. And now I give you everything for food. ⁴ But you must not eat meat that still has blood in it, because blood gives life. ⁵ I will demand your blood for your lives. That is, I will demand the life of any animal that kills a person. And I will demand the life of anyone who takes another person’s life.

⁷ “Noah, I want you and your family to have many children. Grow in number on the earth and become many.”

⁸ Then God said to Noah and his sons, ⁹ “Now I am making my agreement with you and your people who will live after you. ¹⁰ And I also make it with every living thing that is with you. It is with the birds, the tame animals and the wild animals. It is with all that came out of the boat with you. I make my agreement with every living thing on earth. ¹¹ I make this agreement with you: I will never again destroy all living things by floodwaters. A flood will never again destroy the earth.”

¹² And God said, “I am making an agreement between me and you and every living creature that is with you. It will continue from now on. This is the sign: ¹³ I am putting my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of the agreement between me and the earth. ¹⁴ When I bring clouds over the earth, a rainbow appears in the clouds. ¹⁵ Then I will remember my agreement. It is between me and you and every living thing. Floodwaters will never again destroy all life on the earth. ¹⁶ When the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it. Then I will remember the agreement that continues forever. It is between me and every living thing on the earth.”

¹⁷ So God said to Noah, “That rainbow is a sign. It is the sign of the agreement that I made with all living things on earth.”

Noah and His Sons

¹⁸ The sons of Noah came out of the boat with him. They were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) ¹⁹ These three men were Noah’s sons. And all the people on earth came from these three sons.

²⁰ Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard. ²¹ He drank wine made from his grapes. Then he became drunk and lay naked in his tent. ²² Ham, the father of Canaan, looked at his naked father. Ham told his brothers outside. ²³ Then Shem and Japheth got a coat and carried it on both their shoulders. They walked backwards into the tent and covered their father. They turned their faces away. In this way they did not see their father without clothes.

²⁴ Noah was sleeping because of the wine. Later he woke up. Then he learned what his youngest son, Ham, had done to him. ²⁵ So Noah said,

²⁶ Noah also said,

²⁸ After the flood Noah lived 350 years. ²⁹ He lived a total of 950 years. Then he died.

Nations Grow and Spread

10 This is the family history of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth. After the flood these three men had sons.

Japheth’s Sons

² The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras.

³ The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah.

⁴ The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim^[b] and Rodanim. ⁵ Those who lived in the lands around the Mediterranean Sea came from these sons of Japheth. All the families grew and became different nations. Each nation had its own land and its own language.

Ham’s Sons

⁶ The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim,^[c] Put and Canaan.

⁷ The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabteca.

The sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan.

⁸ Cush also had a descendant named Nimrod. Nimrod became a very powerful man on earth. ⁹ He was a great hunter before the Lord. That is why people say someone is “like Nimrod, a great hunter before the Lord.” ¹⁰ At first Nimrod’s kingdom covered Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Calneh in the land of Babylonia. ¹¹ From there he went to Assyria. There he built the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir and Calah. ¹² He also built Resen, the great city between Nineveh and Calah.

¹³ Mizraim was the father of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, ¹⁴ Pathrusites, Casluhites and the people of Crete. (The Philistines came from the Casluhites.)

¹⁵ Canaan was the father of Sidon his first son and of Heth. ¹⁶ Canaan was also the father of the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, ¹⁷ Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, ¹⁸ Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites. The families of the Canaanites scattered. ¹⁹ The land of the Canaanites reached from Sidon to Gerar as far as Gaza. And it reached to Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.

²⁰ All these people were the sons of Ham. All these families had their own languages, their own lands and their own nations.

Shem’s Sons

²¹ Shem, Japheth’s older brother, also had sons. One of his descendants was the father of all the sons of Eber.

²² The sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram.

²³ The sons of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gether and Meshech.

²⁴ Arphaxad was the father of Shelah. Shelah was the father of Eber. ²⁵ Eber was the father of two sons. One son was named Peleg^[d] because the earth was divided during his life. Eber’s other son was named Joktan.

²⁶ Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, ²⁷ Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, ²⁸ Obal, Abimael, Sheba, ²⁹ Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. All these people were the sons of Joktan. ³⁰ These people lived in the area between Mesha and Sephar in the hill country in the East.

³¹ These are the people from the family of Shem. They are arranged by families, languages, countries and nations.

³² This is the list of the families from the sons of Noah. They are arranged according to their nations. From these families came all the nations who spread across the earth after the flood.

Jesus Begins Work in Galilee

¹² Jesus heard that John had been put in prison. So Jesus went back to Galilee. ¹³ He left Nazareth and went and lived in Capernaum, a town near Lake Galilee. Capernaum is in the area near Zebulun and Naphtali. ¹⁴ Jesus did this to make true what the prophet Isaiah said:

Jesus Chooses Some Followers

¹⁷ From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Change your hearts and lives, because the kingdom of heaven is coming soon.”

¹⁸ Jesus was walking by Lake Galilee. He saw two brothers, Simon (called Peter) and Simon’s brother Andrew. The brothers were fishermen, and they were fishing in the lake with a net. ¹⁹ Jesus said, “Come follow me. I will make you fishermen for men.” ²⁰ At once Simon and Andrew left their nets and followed him.

²¹ Jesus continued walking by Lake Galilee. He saw two other brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets to catch fish. Jesus told them to come with him. ²² At once they left the boat and their father, and they followed Jesus.

Jesus Teaches and Heals People

²³ Jesus went everywhere in Galilee. He taught in the synagogues and preached the Good News about the kingdom of heaven. And he healed all the people’s diseases and sicknesses. ²⁴ The news about Jesus spread all over Syria, and people brought all the sick to him. These sick people were suffering from different kinds of diseases and pain. Some were suffering very great pain, some had demons, some were epileptics,^[a] and some were paralyzed. Jesus healed all of them. ²⁵ Many people followed him. They came from Galilee, the Ten Towns,^[b] Jerusalem, Judea, and the land across the Jordan River.

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