Genesis 7
Contemporary English Version
The Flood
7 The Lord told Noah:
Take your whole family with you into the boat, because you are the only one on this earth who pleases me. 2 Take seven pairs of every kind of animal that can be used for sacrifice[a] and one pair of all others. 3 Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird with you. Do this so there will always be animals and birds on the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain that will last for 40 days and nights, and I will destroy all other living creatures I have made.
5-7 (A) Noah was 600 years old when he went into the boat to escape the flood, and he did everything the Lord had told him to do. His wife, his sons, and his daughters-in-law all went inside with him. 8-9 He obeyed God and took a male and a female of each kind of animal and bird into the boat with him. 10 Seven days later a flood began to cover the earth.
11-12 (B) The water under the earth started gushing out everywhere, the sky opened like windows, and rain poured down for 40 days and nights. All this began on the seventeenth day of the second month of the year. 13 On that day Noah and his wife went into the boat with their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. 14 They took along every kind of animal, tame and wild, including the birds. 15 Noah took a male and a female of every living creature with him, 16 just as God had told him to do. And when they were all in the boat, the Lord closed the door.
17-18 For 40 days the rain poured down without stopping. And the water became deeper and deeper, until the boat started floating high above the ground. 19-20 Finally, the mighty flood was so deep that even the highest mountain peaks were about seven meters below the surface of the water. 21 Not a bird, animal, reptile, or human was left alive anywhere on earth. 22-23 (C) The Lord destroyed everything that breathed. Nothing was left alive except Noah and the others in the boat. 24 A hundred fifty days later, the water started going down.
Footnotes
- 7.2 animal … for sacrifice: Hebrew “clean animals.” Animals that could be used for sacrifice were called “clean,” and animals that could not be used were called “unclean.”
Genesis 7
New King James Version
The Great Flood(A)
7 Then the (B)Lord said to Noah, (C)“Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that (D)you are righteous before Me in this generation. 2 You shall take with you seven each of every (E)clean animal, a male and his female; (F)two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; 3 also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep [a]the species alive on the face of all the earth. 4 For after (G)seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth (H)forty days and forty nights, and I will [b]destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.” 5 (I)And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him. 6 Noah was (J)six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth.
7 (K)So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood. 8 Of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, and of everything that creeps on the earth, 9 two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on (L)that day all (M)the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the (N)windows of heaven were opened. 12 (O)And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.
13 On the very same day Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark— 14 (P)they and every beast after its kind, all cattle after their kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every (Q)sort. 15 And they (R)went into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life. 16 So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in (S)as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.
17 (T)Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18 The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, (U)and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. 20 The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. 21 (V)And all flesh died that moved on [c]the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. 22 All in (W)whose nostrils was the breath [d]of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. 23 So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only (X)Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive. 24 (Y)And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.
Footnotes
- Genesis 7:3 Lit. seed
- Genesis 7:4 Lit. blot out
- Genesis 7:21 the land
- Genesis 7:22 LXX, Vg. omit of the spirit
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Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.