Genesis 6–8

The Wickedness of Mankind

6^*When the human race had spread all over the world, and daughters were being born, ^2*some of the heavenly beings^z saw that these young women were beautiful, so they took the ones they liked. ^3*Then the Lord said, “I will not allow people to live for ever; they are mortal. From now on they will live no longer than a hundred and twenty years.” ^4*In those days, and even later, there were giants on the earth who were descendants of human women and the heavenly beings.^a They were the great heroes and famous men of long ago.

^5*When the Lord saw how wicked everyone on earth was and how evil their thoughts were all the time, ^6*he was sorry that he had ever made them and put them on the earth. He was so filled with regret ^7*that he said, “I will wipe out these people I have created, and also the animals and the birds, because I am sorry that I made any of them.” ^8*But the Lord was pleased with Noah.

Noah

^9–10*This is the story of Noah. He had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Noah had no faults and was the only good man of his time. He lived in fellowship with God, ¹¹but everyone else was evil in God’s sight, and violence had spread everywhere. ¹²God looked at the world and saw that it was evil, for the people were all living evil lives.

¹³God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to the whole human race. I will destroy them completely, because the world is full of their violent deeds. ¹⁴Build a boat for yourself out of good timber; make rooms in it and cover it with tar inside and out. ¹⁵Make it 133 metres long, 22 metres wide, and 13 metres high. ¹⁶Make a roof^b for the boat and leave a space of 44 centimetres between the roof^c and the sides. Build it with three decks and put a door in the side. ¹⁷I am going to send a flood on the earth to destroy every living being. Everything on the earth will die, ¹⁸but I will make a covenant with you. Go into the boat with your wife, your sons, and their wives. ^19–20Take into the boat with you a male and a female of every kind of animal and of every kind of bird, in order to keep them alive. ²¹Take along all kinds of food for you and for them.” ^22*Noah did everything that God commanded.

The Flood

7The Lord said to Noah, “Go into the boat with your whole family; I have found that you are the only one in all the world who does what is right. ²Take with you seven pairs of each kind of ritually clean animal, but only one pair of each kind of unclean animal. ³Take also seven pairs of each kind of bird. Do this so that every kind of animal and bird will be kept alive to reproduce again on the earth. ⁴Seven days from now I am going to send rain that will fall for forty days and nights, in order to destroy all the living beings that I have made.” ⁵And Noah did everything that the Lord commanded.

⁶Noah was 600 years old when the flood came on the earth. ^7*He and his wife, and his sons and their wives, went into the boat to escape the flood. ⁸A male and a female of every kind of animal and bird, whether ritually clean or unclean, ⁹went into the boat with Noah, as God had commanded. ¹⁰Seven days later the flood came.

^11*When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month all the outlets of the vast body of water beneath the earth burst open, all the floodgates of the sky were opened, ¹²and rain fell on the earth for 40 days and nights. ¹³On that same day Noah and his wife went into the boat with their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. ¹⁴With them went every kind of animal, domestic and wild, large and small, and every kind of bird. ¹⁵A male and a female of each kind of living being went into the boat with Noah, ¹⁶as God had commanded. Then the Lord shut the door behind Noah.

¹⁷The flood continued for 40 days, and the water became deep enough for the boat to float. ¹⁸The water became deeper, and the boat drifted on the surface. ¹⁹It became so deep that it covered the highest mountains; ²⁰it went on rising until it was about seven metres above the tops of the mountains. ²¹Every living being on the earth died—every bird, every animal, and every person. ²²Everything on earth that breathed died. ²³The Lord destroyed all living beings on the earth—human beings, animals, and birds. The only ones left were Noah and those who were with him in the boat. ²⁴The water did not start going down for 150 days.

The End of the Flood

8God had not forgotten Noah and all the animals with him in the boat; he caused a wind to blow, and the water started going down. ²The outlets of the water beneath the earth and the floodgates of the sky were closed. The rain stopped, ³and the water gradually went down for 150 days. ⁴On the seventeenth day of the seventh month the boat came to rest on a mountain in the Ararat range. ⁵The water kept going down, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains appeared.

⁶After 40 days Noah opened a window ⁷and sent out a raven. It did not come back, but kept flying around until the water was completely gone. ⁸Meanwhile, Noah sent out a dove to see if the water had gone down, ⁹but since the water still covered all the land, the dove did not find a place to alight. It flew back to the boat, and Noah reached out and took it in. ¹⁰He waited another seven days and sent out the dove again. ¹¹It returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. So Noah knew that the water had gone down. ¹²Then he waited another seven days and sent out the dove once more; this time it did not come back.

¹³When Noah was 601 years old, on the first day of the first month, the water was gone. Noah removed the covering of the boat, looked round, and saw that the ground was getting dry. ¹⁴By the 27th day of the second month the earth was completely dry.

¹⁵God said to Noah, ¹⁶“Go out of the boat with your wife, your sons, and their wives. ¹⁷Take all the birds and animals out with you, so that they may reproduce and spread over all the earth.” ¹⁸So Noah went out of the boat with his wife, his sons, and their wives. ¹⁹All the animals and birds went out of the boat in groups of their own kind.

Noah Offers a Sacrifice

²⁰Noah built an altar to the Lord; he took one of each kind of ritually clean animal and bird, and burnt them whole as a sacrifice on the altar. ²¹The odour of the sacrifice pleased the Lord, and he said to himself, “Never again will I put the earth under a curse because of what people do; I know that from the time they are young their thoughts are evil. Never again will I destroy all living beings, as I have done this time. ²²As long as the world exists, there will be a time for planting and a time for harvest. There will always be cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”