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.

The Water Goes Down

8 God did not forget about Noah and the animals with him in the boat. So God made a wind blow, and the water started going down. ² God stopped up the places where the water had been gushing out from under the earth. He also closed up the sky, and the rain stopped. ³ For 150 days the water slowly went down. ⁴ Then on the seventeenth day of the seventh month of the year, the boat came to rest somewhere in the Ararat mountains. ⁵ The water kept going down, and the mountain tops could be seen on the first day of the tenth month.

^6-7 Forty days later Noah opened a window to send out a raven, but it kept flying around until the water had dried up. ⁸ Noah wanted to find out if the water had gone down, so he sent out a dove. ⁹ Deep water was still everywhere, and when the dove could not find a place to land, it flew back to the boat. Then Noah held out his hand and helped it back in.

¹⁰ Seven days later Noah sent the dove out again. ¹¹ It returned in the evening, holding in its beak a green leaf from an olive tree. Noah knew the water was finally going down. ¹² He waited seven more days before sending the dove out again, and this time it did not return.

¹³ Noah was now 601 years old. And by the first day of that year, almost all the water had gone away. Noah made an opening in the roof of the boat^[a] and saw that the ground was getting dry. ¹⁴ By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was completely dry.

¹⁵ God said to Noah, ¹⁶ “You, your wife, your sons, and your daughters-in-law may now leave the boat. ¹⁷ Let out the birds, animals, and reptiles, so they can mate and live all over the earth.” ¹⁸ After Noah and his family had left the boat, ¹⁹ the living creatures left in groups of their own kind.

The Lord's Promise for the Earth

²⁰ Noah built an altar where he could offer sacrifices to the Lord. Then he offered on the altar one of each kind of animal and bird that could be used for a sacrifice.^{[b] 21} The smell of the burning offering pleased the Lord, and he said:

Never again will I punish the earth for the sinful things its people do. All of them have evil thoughts from the time they are young, but I will never destroy everything that breathes, as I did this time.