The Flood

1Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you with all your household, for you [alone] I have seen as righteous (doing what is right) before Me in this generation. 2Of every [a]clean animal you shall take with you seven pair, the male and his female, and of animals that are not clean, two each the male and his female; 3also of the birds of the air, seven pair, the male and the female, to keep the offspring alive on the surface of the earth. 4For in seven days I am going to cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and I will destroy (blot out, wipe away) every living thing that I have made from the surface of the earth.” 5So Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.

6Noah was six hundred years old when the flood (deluge) of water came on the earth [covering all of the land]. 7Then Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him entered the ark to escape the flood waters. 8Of [b]clean animals and animals that are not clean and birds and fowls and everything that crawls on the ground, 9they came [motivated by God] into the ark with Noah two by two, the male and the female, just as God had commanded Noah. 10And after the seven days [God released the rain and] 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 same day all the fountains of the great deep [subterranean waters] burst open, and the windows and floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12It rained on the earth for forty days and forty nights.

13On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark, 14they and every animal according to its kind, all the livestock according to their kinds, every moving thing that crawls on the earth according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, every winged thing of every sort. 15So they went into the ark with Noah, two by two of all living beings in which there was the breath and spirit of life. 16Those which entered, male and female of all flesh (creatures), entered as God had commanded Noah; and the LORD closed the door behind him.

17The flood [the great downpour of rain] was forty days and nights on the earth; and the waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it floated [high] above the land. 18The waters became mighty and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters. 19The waters prevailed so greatly and were so mighty and overwhelming on the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. 20[In fact] the waters became [c]fifteen cubits higher [than the highest ground], and the mountains were covered. 21All living beings that moved on the earth perished--birds and cattle (domestic animals), [wild] animals, all things that swarm and crawl on the earth, and all mankind. 22Everything on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath and spirit of life, died. 23God destroyed (blotted out, wiped away) every living thing that was on the surface of the earth; man and animals and the crawling things and the birds of the heavens were destroyed from the land. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive. 24The waters covered [all of] the earth for a hundred and fifty days (five months).

[a] 2 This anticipates the numerous distinctions between animals for food purposes, which would later be revealed in the Mosaic Law.
[b] 8 The five extra pair of clean animals were for food and for sacrifice later.
[c] 20 About twenty-three feet.