Genesis 6–11

6TH CHAPTER

Evil Increases on the Earth

¹The number of people increased all over the earth, and daughters were born to them. ²The sons of God saw that the daughters of other humans were beautiful. So they married any woman they chose. 

³Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not struggle with humans forever, because they are flesh and blood. They will live 120 years.” 

⁴The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, as well as later, when the sons of God slept with the daughters of other humans and had children by them. These children were famous long ago. 

⁵The Lord saw how evil humans had become on the earth. All day long their deepest thoughts were nothing but evil. ⁶The Lord was sorry that he had made humans on the earth, and he was heartbroken. ⁷So he said, “I will wipe off the face of the earth these humans that I created. I will wipe out not only humans, but also domestic animals, crawling animals, and birds. I’m sorry that I made them.” ⁸But the Lord was pleased with Noah. 

Noah’s Family and the Ship

⁹This is the account of Noah and his descendants. 

Noah had God’s approval and was a man of integrity among the people of his time. He walked with God. ¹⁰He had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 

¹¹The world was corrupt in God’s sight and full of violence. ¹²God saw the world and how corrupt it was because all people on earth lived evil lives. 

¹³God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to all people because the earth is full of their violence. Now I’m going to destroy them along with the earth. ¹⁴Make yourself a ship of cypress wood.^aMake rooms in the ship and coat it inside and out with tar. ¹⁵This is how you should build it: the ship is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. ¹⁶Make a roof for the ship, and leave an 18-inch-high opening at the top.Put a door in the side of the ship. Build the ship with lower, middle, and upper decks. ¹⁷I’m about to send a flood on the earth to destroy all people under the sky—every living, breathing human. Everything on earth will die. 

¹⁸“But I will make my promise^cto you. You, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives will go into the ship. ¹⁹Bring two of every living creature into the ship in order to keep them alive with you. They must be male and female. ²⁰Two of every type of bird, every type of domestic animal, and every type of creature that crawls on the ground will come to you to be kept alive. ²¹Take every kind of food that can be eaten and store it. It will be food for you and the animals.” 

²²Noah did this. He did everything that God had commanded him. 

7TH CHAPTER

The Flood

¹The Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ship with your whole family because I have seen that you alone are righteous among the people of today. ²Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal (a male and a female of each) and one pair of every kind of unclean^aanimal (a male and a female). ³Also, take seven pairs of every kind of bird (a male and a female of each) to preserve animal life all over the earth after the flood. ⁴In seven days I will send rain to the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. I will wipe off the face of the earth every living creature that I have made.” 

⁵So Noah did everything that the Lord commanded him. 

⁶Noah was 600 years old when the flood came to the earth. ⁷Noah, his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives went into the ship to escape the floodwaters. ⁸Clean and unclean animals, birds, and creatures that crawl on the ground ⁹came to Noah to go into the ship in pairs (a male and female of each) as God had commanded Noah. 

¹⁰Seven days later the flood came on the earth. ¹¹On the seventeenth day of the second month of the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, all the deep springs burst open. The sky opened, ¹²and rain came pouring down on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. 

¹³On that same day Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, as well as Noah’s wife and his three daughters-in-law went into the ship. ¹⁴They had with them every type of wild animal, every type of domestic animal, every type of creature that crawls on the earth, and every type of bird (every creature with wings). ¹⁵A pair of every living, breathing animal came to Noah to go into the ship. ¹⁶A male and a female of every animal went in as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord closed the door behind them. 

¹⁷The flood continued for 40 days on the earth. The water increased and lifted the ship so that it rose high above the ground. ¹⁸As the water rose and became very deep, the ship floated on top of the water. ¹⁹The water rose very high above the earth. It covered all the high mountains everywhere under the sky. ²⁰It rose 23 feet above the mountaintops. 

²¹Every creature that crawls on the earth died, including birds, domestic and wild animals, and everything that swarms over the earth, along with every human. ²²Everything on dry land (every living, breathing creature) died. ²³Every living creature on the face of the earth was wiped out. Humans, domestic animals, crawling creatures, and birds were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those with him in the ship were left. 

²⁴The floodwaters were on the earth for 150 days. 

8TH CHAPTER

God Remembers Noah

¹God remembered Noah and all the wild and domestic animals with him in the ship. So God made a wind blow over the earth, and the water started to go down. ²The deep springs and the sky had been shut, and the rain had stopped pouring. ³The water began to recede from the land. At the end of 150 days the water had decreased. ⁴On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ship came to rest in the mountains of Ararat. ⁵The water kept decreasing until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains appeared. 

⁶After 40 more days Noah opened the window he had made in the ship ⁷and sent out a raven. It kept flying back and forth until the water on the land had dried up. ⁸Next, he sent out a dove to see if the water was gone from the surface of the ground. ⁹The dove couldn’t find a place to land because the water was still all over the earth. So it came back to Noah in the ship. He reached out and brought the dove back into the ship. ¹⁰He waited seven more days and again sent the dove out of the ship. ¹¹The dove came to him in the evening, and in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf. Then Noah knew that the water was gone from the earth. ¹²He waited seven more days and sent out the dove again, but it never came back to him. 

¹³By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water on the land had dried up. Noah opened the top of the ship, looked out, and saw the surface of the ground. ¹⁴By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was dry. 

¹⁵Then God spoke to Noah, ¹⁶“Come out of the ship with your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives. ¹⁷Bring out every animal that’s with you: birds, domestic animals, and every creature that crawls on the earth. Be fertile, increase in number, and spread over the earth.” 

¹⁸So Noah came out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹Every animal, crawling creature, and bird—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the ship, one kind after another. 

²⁰Noah built an altar to the Lord. On it he made a burnt offering of each type of clean^aanimal and clean bird. ²¹The Lord smelled the soothing aroma. He said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of humans, even though from birth their hearts are set on nothing but evil. I will never again kill every living creature as I have just done. 

²²As long as the earth exists, 

planting and harvesting, 

cold and heat, 

summer and winter, 

day and night 

will never stop.” 

9TH CHAPTER

God Blesses Noah and His Sons

¹God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fertile, increase in number, and fill the earth. ²All the wild animals and all the birds will fear you and be terrified of you. Every creature that crawls on the ground and all the fish in the sea have been put under your control. ³Everything that lives and moves will be your food. I gave you green plants as food; I now give you everything else. 

⁴“But you are not to eat meat with blood in it. (Blood is life.) ⁵In addition, I will demand your blood for your life. I will demand it from any animal or from any person. I will demand the life of any person ⸤who kills⸥ another person. 

⁶Whoever sheds human blood, 

by humans his blood will be shed, 

because in the image of God, God made humans. 

⁷Be fertile, and increase in number. Spread over the earth, and increase.” 

God’s Promise—the Sign of the Rainbow

⁸God also said to Noah and his sons, ⁹“I am going to make my promise^ato you, your descendants, ¹⁰and every living being that is with you—birds, domestic animals, and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ship—every living thing on earth. ¹¹I am making my promise to you. Never again will all life be killed by floodwaters. Never again will there be a flood that destroys the earth.” 

¹²God said, “This is the sign of the promise I am giving to you and every living being that is with you for generations to come. ¹³I will put my rainbow in the clouds to be a sign of my promise to the earth. ¹⁴Whenever I form clouds over the earth, a rainbow will appear in the clouds. ¹⁵Then I will remember my promise to you and every living animal. Never again will water become a flood to destroy all life. ¹⁶Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember my everlasting promise to every living animal on earth.” 

¹⁷So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the promise I am making to all life on earth.” 

Noah Curses Canaan but Blesses Shem and Japheth

¹⁸Noah’s sons, who came out of the ship, were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. ¹⁹These were Noah’s three sons. From them the whole earth was populated. Ham was the father of Canaan.^b

²⁰Noah, a farmer, was the first person to plant a vineyard. ²¹He drank some wine, got drunk, and lay naked inside his tent. ²²Ham,…