Genesis 6:1-9:17

New Century Version

The Human Race Becomes Evil

6 The number of people on earth began to grow, and daughters were born to them. ² When the sons of God saw that these girls were beautiful, they married any of them they chose. ³ The Lord said, “My Spirit will not remain in human beings forever, because they are flesh. They will live only 120 years.”

⁴ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also later. That was when the sons of God had sexual relations with the daughters of human beings. These women gave birth to children, who became famous and were the mighty warriors of long ago.

⁵ The Lord saw that the human beings on the earth were very wicked and that everything they thought about was evil. ⁶ He was sorry he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. ⁷ So the Lord said, “I will destroy all human beings that I made on the earth. And I will destroy every animal and everything that crawls on the earth and the birds of the air, because I am sorry I have made them.” ⁸ But Noah pleased the Lord.

Noah and the Great Flood

⁹ This is the family history of Noah. Noah was a good man, the most innocent man of his time, and he walked with God. ¹⁰ He had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

¹¹ People on earth did what God said was evil, and violence was everywhere. ¹² When God saw that everyone on the earth did only evil, ¹³ he said to Noah, “Because people have made the earth full of violence, I will destroy all of them from the earth. ¹⁴ Build a boat of cypress wood for yourself. Make rooms in it and cover it inside and outside with tar. ¹⁵ This is how big I want you to build the boat: four hundred fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high. ¹⁶ Make an opening around the top of the boat that is eighteen inches high from the edge of the roof down. Put a door in the side of the boat. Make an upper, middle, and lower deck in it. ¹⁷ I will bring a flood of water on the earth to destroy all living things that live under the sky, including everything that has the breath of life. Everything on the earth will die. ¹⁸ But I will make an agreement with you—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives will all go into the boat. ¹⁹ Also, you must bring into the boat two of every living thing, male and female. Keep them alive with you. ²⁰ Two of every kind of bird, animal, and crawling thing will come to you to be kept alive. ²¹ Also gather some of every kind of food and store it on the boat as food for you and the animals.”

²² Noah did everything that God commanded him.

The Flood Begins

7 Then the Lord said to Noah, “I have seen that you are the best person among the people of this time, so you and your family can go into the boat. ² Take with you seven pairs, each male with its female, of every kind of clean animal, and take one pair, each male with its female, of every kind of unclean animal. ³ Take seven pairs of all the birds of the sky, each male with its female. This will allow all these animals to continue living on the earth after the flood. ⁴ Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth. It will rain forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe off from the earth every living thing that I have made.”

⁵ Noah did everything the Lord commanded him.

⁶ Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came. ⁷ He and his wife and his sons and their wives went into the boat to escape the waters of the flood. ⁸ The clean animals, the unclean animals, the birds, and everything that crawls on the ground ⁹ came to Noah. They went into the boat in groups of two, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. ¹⁰ Seven days later the flood started.

¹¹ When Noah was six hundred years old, the flood started. On the seventeenth day of the second month of that year the underground springs split open, and the clouds in the sky poured out rain. ¹² The rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights.

¹³ On that same day Noah and his wife, his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives went into the boat. ¹⁴ They had every kind of wild and tame animal, every kind of animal that crawls on the earth, and every kind of bird. ¹⁵ Every creature that had the breath of life came to Noah in the boat in groups of two. ¹⁶ One male and one female of every living thing came, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord closed the door behind them.

¹⁷ Water flooded the earth for forty days, and as it rose it lifted the boat off the ground. ¹⁸ The water continued to rise, and the boat floated on it above the earth. ¹⁹ The water rose so much that even the highest mountains under the sky were covered by it. ²⁰ It continued to rise until it was more than twenty feet above the mountains.

²¹ All living things that moved on the earth died. This included all the birds, tame animals, wild animals, and creatures that swarm on the earth, as well as all human beings. ²² So everything on dry land that had the breath of life in it died. ²³ God destroyed from the earth every living thing that was on the land—every man, animal, crawling thing, and bird of the sky. All that was left was Noah and what was with him in the boat. ²⁴ And the waters continued to cover the earth for one hundred fifty days.

The Flood Ends

8 But God remembered Noah and all the wild and tame animals with him in the boat. He made a wind blow over the earth, and the water went down. ² The underground springs stopped flowing, and the clouds in the sky stopped pouring down rain. ^3-4 The water that covered the earth began to go down. After one hundred fifty days it had gone down so much that the boat touched land again. It came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat^[a] on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. ⁵ The water continued to go down so that by the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains could be seen.

⁶ Forty days later Noah opened the window he had made in the boat, and ⁷ he sent out a raven. It flew here and there until the water had dried up from the earth. ⁸ Then Noah sent out a dove to find out if the water had dried up from the ground. ⁹ The dove could not find a place to land because water still covered the earth, so it came back to the boat. Noah reached out his hand and took the bird and brought it back into the boat.

¹⁰ After seven days Noah again sent out the dove from the boat, ¹¹ and that evening it came back to him with a fresh olive leaf in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the ground was almost dry. ¹² Seven days later he sent the dove out again, but this time it did not come back.

¹³ When Noah was six hundred and one years old, in the first day of the first month of that year, the water was dried up from the land. Noah removed the covering of the boat and saw that the land was dry. ¹⁴ By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was completely dry.

¹⁵ Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶ “You and your wife, your sons, and their wives should go out of the boat. ¹⁷ Bring every animal out of the boat with you—the birds, animals, and everything that crawls on the earth. Let them have many young ones so that they might grow in number.”

¹⁸ So Noah went out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹ Every animal, everything that crawls on the earth, and every bird went out of the boat by families.

²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of all the clean birds and animals, and he burned them on the altar as offerings to God. ²¹ The Lord was pleased with these sacrifices and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of human beings. Their thoughts are evil even when they are young, but I will never again destroy every living thing on the earth as I did this time.

The New Beginning

9 Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Have many children; grow in number and fill the earth. ² Every animal on earth, every bird in the sky, every animal that crawls on the ground, and every fish in the sea will respect and fear you. I have given them to you.

³ “Everything that moves, everything that is alive, is yours for food. Earlier I gave you the green plants, but now I give you everything for food. ⁴ But you must not eat meat that still has blood in it, because blood gives life. ⁵ I will demand blood for life. I will demand the life of any animal that kills a person, and I will demand the life of anyone who takes another person’s life.

⁷ “As for you, Noah, I want you and your family to have many children, to grow in number on the earth, and to become many.”

⁸ Then God said to Noah and his sons, ⁹ “Now I am making my agreement with you and your people who will live after you, ¹⁰ and with every living thing that is with you—the birds, the tame and the wild animals, and with everything that came out of the boat with you—with every living thing on earth. ¹¹ I make this agreement with you: I will never again destroy all living things by a flood. A flood will never again destroy the earth.”

¹² And God said, “This is the sign of the agreement between me and you and every living creature that is with you. ¹³ I am putting my rainbow in the clouds as the sign of the agreement between me and the earth. ¹⁴ When I bring clouds over the earth and a rainbow appears in them, ¹⁵ I will remember my agreement between me and you and every living thing. Floods will never again destroy all life on the earth. ¹⁶ When the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and I will remember the agreement that continues forever between me and every living thing on the earth.”

¹⁷ So God said to Noah, “The rainbow is a sign of the agreement that I made with all living things on earth.”