Genesis 8:21-9:7 (Vespers, 1st reading)
- 21
- And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.
- 22
- While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.”
- 1
- So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
- 2
- “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand.
- 3
- Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.
- 4
- But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
- 5
- Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.
- 6
- Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man.
- 7
- And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it.”