The Rainbow Covenant

1And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”

2And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are given.

3Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you. As I gave you the green plants, I have given you everything.

4But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.

5And surely I will require your blood for your lives. From the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man—from the hand of each man's brother—I will require the life of the man.

6Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his image.

7And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; swarm in the earth and multiply in it.

8Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, saying,

9And as for me, behold, I am establishing my covenant with you and with your offspring after you.

10and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, from all that came out of the ark, every beast of the earth.

11And I will establish my covenant with you: never again will all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.

12And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I am giving between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:”

13I have set my bow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

14And when I bring clouds over the earth, the bow will be seen in the cloud,

15and I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature among all flesh, and the waters will never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

16The bow will be in the cloud, and I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature among all flesh that is on the earth.

17And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”