Genesis 8:21

God smelled the meat cooking on that stone table, and he was happy. Then God said to himself, “People always just want to do bad things. They do that all their lives, from when they are little kids, right up until the time they die. But I will never again punish them the same way that I did this time. I will never again finish up everything that breathes air, and I will never again curse the earth. While the earth is still here, the seasons will stay the same. There will always be day and night, and every year there will be a hot time and a cold time, a wet season and a dry season. There will always be a right time to plant seeds for food, and a right time to get the food from those plants.”

Plain English Version

In The King James Version

And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

In Context

20Then Noah piled up stones to make a special table with a flat top, and he got one of each sort of animal and bird that are the right sorts to give to God, and he killed them, and he put them on that special table, and he burned them there. He did that to give them to God, to say thank you to God.

Read all of Genesis 8

Cross References

Genesis 4:12If you try to grow plants in the ground, nothing will grow for you. You will go away from me. And you will walk around in lots of places, but you will not have a home.”

Genesis 6:5God looked at the people on the earth, and he saw them doing lots of bad things. He knew the way they were thinking. They were thinking bad things all the time. God saw that the people were very bad.

Genesis 9:11I promise that there will never again be a real big flood of water that will finish up everything on the earth. There will never again be a big flood that kills all the people and animals.”

Matthew Henry on Genesis 8:21-22

Noah's Sacrifice. ( b. c. 2348.) 20 And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord ; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. 22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Genesis 8:21