Chapter 6
1When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,
2the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
3Then the Lord said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal ; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."
4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days-and also afterward-when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
5The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
6The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
7So the Lord said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth-men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air-for I am grieved that I have made them."
8But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord .
9This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.
10Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
11Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence.
12God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
13So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
14So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.
15This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.
16Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.
17I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.
18But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark-you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.
19You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.
20Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.
21You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."
22Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
Chapter 7
1The Lord then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.
2Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate,
3and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.
4Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."
5And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
6Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.
7And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood.
8Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground,
9male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.
10And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
11In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month-on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
12And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
13On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark.
14They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings.
15Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark.
16The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in.
17For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.
18The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water.
19They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered.
20The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. ,
21Every living thing that moved on the earth perished-birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.
22Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.
23Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
24The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.
Chapter 8
1But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.
2Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky.
3The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down,
4and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
5The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.
6After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark
7and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth.
8Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground.
9But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.
10He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark.
11When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.
12He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
13By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.
14By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
15Then God said to Noah,
16"Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.
17Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you-the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground-so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it."
18So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives.
19All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds-everything that moves on the earth-came out of the ark, one kind after another.
20Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.
21The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
22"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."
Chapter 9
1Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.
2The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands.
3Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
4"But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.
5And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.
6"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.
7As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."
8Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him:
9"I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you
10and with every living creature that was with you-the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you-every living creature on earth.
11I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."
12And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:
13I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
14Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds,
15I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.
16Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."
17So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth."
