Noah and the Flood

⁹ This is the account^(A) of Noah and his family.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless^(B) among the people of his time,^(C) and he walked faithfully with God.^{(D) 10} Noah had three sons: Shem,^(E) Ham and Japheth.^(F)

¹¹ Now the earth was corrupt^(G) in God’s sight and was full of violence.^{(H) 12} God saw how corrupt^(I) the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.^{(J) 13} So 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^(K) both them and the earth.^{(L) 14} So make yourself an ark of cypress^[a] wood;^(M) make rooms in it and coat it with pitch^(N) inside and out. ¹⁵ This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.^{[b] 16} Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit^[c] high all around.^[d] Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. ¹⁷ I am going to bring floodwaters^(O) 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.^{(P) 18} But I will establish my covenant with you,^(Q) and you will enter the ark^(R)—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁹ You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.^{(S) 20} Two^(T) of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind^(U) of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.^{(V) 21} You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”

²² Noah did everything just as God commanded him.^(W)

¹⁷ For forty days^(A) the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. ¹⁸ The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. ¹⁹ They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered.^{(B) 20} The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.^{[a][b] (C) 21} Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.^(D)

²⁴ The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.^(A)

8 But God remembered^(A) Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth,^(B) and the waters receded. ² Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens^(C) had been closed, and the rain^(D) had stopped falling from the sky. ³ The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days^(E) the water had gone down, ⁴ and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month^(F) the ark came to rest on the mountains^(G) of Ararat.^{(H) 5} The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.

⁶ After forty days^(I) Noah opened a window he had made in the ark ⁷ and sent out a raven,^(J) and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth.^{(K) 8} Then he sent out a dove^(L) to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. ⁹ But the dove could find nowhere to perch 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. ¹⁰ He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. ¹¹ When 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.^{(M) 12} He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

¹³ By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year,^(N) 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. ¹⁴ By the twenty-seventh day of the second month^(O) the earth was completely dry.

¹⁵ Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶ “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.^{(P) 17} Bring 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 on it.”^(Q)

¹⁸ So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives.^{(R) 19} All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.

²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the Lord^(S) and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean^(T) birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings^(U) on it. ²¹ The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma^(V) and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground^(W) because of humans, even though^[a] every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.^(X) And never again will I destroy^(Y) all living creatures,^(Z) as I have done.

¹² And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant^(A) I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:^{(B) 13} I have set my rainbow^(C) in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.