Beginning
4 Now Adam and Eve discovered the pleasures of lovemaking, and soon Eve conceived and gave birth to a son whom they named Cain.
Eve (excited): Look, I have created a new human, a male child, with the help of the Eternal.
One of the first things Adam and Eve do after being banished from the garden of Eden is to make a baby. Despite the pain of childbirth, Eve speaks with joy of the birth of her son. She certainly suffers and could have easily died in childbirth, but the desire to reproduce and the joy of joining with God in the creative process brings great reward. Every parent knows the risks and rewards of bringing forth the next generation.
2 Eve went on to give birth to Cain’s brother, Abel. Abel grew up to become a shepherd, and Cain grew up to become a farmer. 3 After he had learned how to produce food from the fields, Cain gave the Eternal One an offering—some of the crops he had grown from the ground. 4 For his part of the offering, Abel gave God some tender lamb meat—the choicest cuts from the firstborn of his flock. The Eternal One accepted Abel and his gift of lamb, 5 while He had no regard for Cain and what he presented. Because of this, Cain became extremely angry and his face fell.
God notices Cain’s reaction and confronts him.
Eternal One (to Cain): 6 Why are you angry? And why do you look so despondent? 7 Don’t you know that as long as you do what is right, then I accept you? But if you do not do what is right, watch out, because sin is crouching at the door, ready to pounce on you! You must master it before it masters you.
Jealousy is eating at Cain’s heart. Left unattended, it consumes him.
8 Cain spoke to his brother Abel. When they were in the field, Cain’s envy of his brother got the better of him, and he attacked and killed Abel.
Eternal One (to Cain): 9 Where’s your brother Abel?
Cain: I have no idea. Am I supposed to be responsible for where he goes and what he does?
Eternal One: 10 What have you done? Listen! I can hear the voice of your brother’s blood crying out to Me from the ground! 11 And now you are cursed, cut off from the ground—the ground that opened up and received your brother’s innocent blood, spilled by your own murderous hand! 12 From now on, when you till the ground, it will no longer yield for you its strength and nourishment. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.
Cain: 13 My punishment is more than I can bear! 14 Today You have banned me from the soil and hidden me from Your presence! I will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me will want to kill me!
Eternal One: 15 That’s not the case! Whoever kills you will suffer My vengeance and pay the penalty seven times!
Then God put a special mark on Cain, so that no one who came in contact with him would try to kill him.
16 Then Cain went away from the Eternal’s presence and settled in the land of Nod, a place for wanderers, to the east of Eden. 17 Cain made love to his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. Cain built a city there and named it Enoch after his son. 18 And this is how their family progressed: Enoch’s son was Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael. Mehujael was the father of Methushael, and Methushael was the father of Lamech.
19 Now Lamech married two wives, Adah and Zillah. 20 Adah gave birth to Jabal. His descendants are those who make their homes in tents and keep livestock. 21 Jabal’s brother’s name was Jubal, and his descendants are musicians who play instruments such as the lyre and the pipe. 22 Zillah, Lamech’s other wife, gave birth to Tubal-cain. Now he was a bronze- and ironsmith, and his sister was Naamah.
23 One day, Lamech announced to his wives:
Lamech: Adah and Zillah, listen to me!
Wives of Lamech, I need to tell you something!
I killed a man who struck me.
He was a young man who wounded me first.
24 Here’s how I see it:
if Cain is avenged seven times,
then surely Lamech must be avenged seventy-seven times!
25 Meanwhile, Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to another son and named him Seth.
Eve (to herself): God has given me another child to replace Abel, since Cain killed him.
26 After many years passed, Seth became the father of a son and named him Enosh. This was about the time when people began to worship and call on the name of the Eternal One.
5 Here now is the account of Adam’s descendants. You remember, when God created humans, He made them in His own likeness. 2 He created them male and female; and after creating them, God put a special blessing on them and named them “humanity.”
3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son who looked just like him. He was Adam’s spitting image, and so resembled God too. Adam named him Seth. 4 After Seth was born, Adam lived another 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters as well. 5 So Adam was 930 years old when he died.
6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered a son named Enosh. 7 After Enosh was born, Seth lived another 807 years, and he also had other sons and daughters. 8 He was 912 years old when he died.
9 When Enosh had lived 90 years, he fathered a son named Kenan. 10 After Kenan was born, Enosh lived another 815 years, and he had other sons and daughters too. 11 He was 905 years old when he died.
12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he fathered a son named Mahalalel. 13 After Mahalalel was born, Kenan lived another 840 years, and he had other sons and daughters. 14 He was 910 years old when he died.
15 When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he fathered a son named Jared. 16 After Jared was born, Mahalalel lived another 830 years, and he, too, had other sons and daughters. 17 He was 895 years old when he died.
18 When Jared had lived 162 years, he fathered a son named Enoch. 19 After Enoch was born, Jared lived another 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters. 20 He was 962 years old when he died.
21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered a son named Methuselah. 22 After Methuselah was born, Enoch lived in a close relationship with God for 300 more years; he also had other sons and daughters. 23 He lived to be 365 years old, 24 but Enoch had such a close and intimate relationship with God that one day he just vanished—God took him.
Enoch leaves this world in an unusual way. He is taken without experiencing death. But he is not the last.
25 When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he fathered a son named Lamech. 26 After Lamech was born, Methuselah lived another 782 years, and he also had other sons and daughters. 27 He was 969 years old when he died.
28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son 29 named Noah. He named him this because he predicted, “From out of the ground the Eternal cursed will now come someone who will bring relief from our work and painful toil.” 30 After Noah was born, Lamech lived another 595 years, and he had other sons and daughters. 31 He was 777 years old when he died.
32 Now by the time Noah was 500 years old, he had fathered three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
6 As human beings began to multiply and spread across the surface of the earth as God commanded, they had lovely daughters. 2 The sons of God saw how beautiful the humans’ daughters were, and they decided to take any daughters they wanted as their wives.
Eternal One: 3 My life-giving Spirit will not sustain human beings forever because they are, after all, made of flesh. Therefore, I will put a limit on their lifespan of about 120 years.
Throughout Scripture God is described as spirit and humans as flesh. God’s statement emphasizes the eternal, life-giving nature of spirit and the mortal, dependent nature of flesh. Without God’s Spirit-breath sustaining humanity, life itself is not possible. Humans are totally dependent on God. The upper limit of human life is set at roughly 120 years; but the change comes gradually, and Aaron is the last of the patriarchs to live beyond the limit.
4 Now at that time and for some time to come, a great warrior race[a] lived on the earth. Whenever the sons of God would have sex with the humans’ daughters, the women bore them children who became mighty warriors. In the days of old, they became famous heroes, the kind people tell stories about!
By Noah’s time nearly all people are drugged on the fumes of their egos. Wickedness has become the number one, all-consuming human addiction.
5 The Eternal One saw that wickedness was rampaging throughout the earth and that evil had become the first thought on every mind, the constant purpose of every person. 6-7 At that point God’s heart broke, and He regretted having ever made man in the first place.
Eternal One: I know what I’ll do. I will wipe humanity, My special creation, from the face of the earth—humans, animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I ever made them.
8 But there was one person whom the Lord could not let go of—Noah—because this man pleased Him.
9 Here is the account of Noah and his descendants. Noah was a good man, a right-living man, the best man of his generation; and he walked closely with God. 10 Noah fathered three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11-12 They lived at a time when the world had become vile and corrupt. Violence was everywhere. God saw that the earth was in ruins, and He knew why: all people on earth except Noah had lived corrupt lives and ruined God’s plans for them. He had to do something.
Eternal One (to Noah): 13 Noah, I have decided to wipe out all the living creatures I have made because they are spreading violence throughout the earth. Watch! I will destroy them with the earth. 14 I want you to build an ark. Build it out of cypress wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with tar. 15 Here’s how you will do it: build the ark 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. 16 Put a roof[b] on the ark and leave a gap of 18 inches below the roofline for air to circulate. Put the door of the ark in its side, and build it with lower, middle, and upper decks. 17 Look! I am going to unleash a torrent and flood the earth to destroy all flesh under the heavens which breathes the breath of life. Everything that is on the earth will die.
18 But I will make a pact with you, Noah—a covenant agreement. To survive, you and your family—you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives—must go into the ark. 19 And, out of all the living creatures I have made, you must bring two of each kind into the ark with you, to keep them alive. Bring one male and one female of each kind. 20 Bring all kinds of birds, all sorts of animals, and all varieties of creatures that creep on the ground in pairs, so that each species will survive. 21 Also, you must bring food with you. Bring every kind of food that may be eaten, and store it all inside the ark. That way, you and all of the creatures will have enough food to eat.
22 So Noah listened to God, and he built the ark. He did everything God asked him to do.
7 Eternal One (to Noah): It’s time! Go into the ark now. Take your entire household with you, because I see that you are the only one in this generation who lives right before Me. 2 Take the animals with you. Take seven pairs of all ritually acceptable animals, both the male and female; and take one pair of any animal that isn’t acceptable, both the male and female. 3 And take seven pairs of the birds of the sky, too, also male and female, so that we can keep each kind alive on the earth. 4 Seven days from now, I will send a massive rain to cover the earth. The rain will last 40 days and 40 nights, and every living thing I have made will be wiped off the face of the earth.
In distinguishing between animals that are ritually acceptable and unacceptable, God is anticipating the instructions He will give His people later regarding holiness and purity (Leviticus 11:1–47; Deuteronomy 14:4–20). Some animals are ritually acceptable for sacrifices, so they are suitable for food. Other animals are not to be offered to God or eaten. Ultimately, what enters human bodies matters to God; after all He made them.
5 Noah did everything the Eternal One asked him to do.
6 Noah was 600 years old when the flood waters swept over the earth. 7 Noah and his wife, his sons and their wives, all went into the ark in order to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Noah made sure to take along all of the animals (both ritually acceptable and unacceptable), the birds, and all the small creeping creatures 9 in pairs by males and females, just as God had told him to do. They all went into the ark with him, two by two. 10 After seven days, the rains began and waters flooded the earth.
11 On the 17th day of the 2nd month in Noah’s 600th year, all of the subterranean waters erupted from the depths of the earth and burst skyward, covering the land. The casements of the heavens cracked open, 12 dousing heavy rains over the watery earth for 40 days and 40 nights.
13 On the same day, Noah, his wife, his sons (Shem, Ham, and Japheth), and his sons’ wives went into the ark, and all were secured within it. 14 Inside the ark they had with them all sorts of wild animals, domesticated animals, small creeping creatures, and all kinds of birds, that is, every winged creature. 15 All of them went along into the ark to Noah in pairs—all flesh into which God had breathed the breath of life. 16 All those in the ark, males and females of all living flesh, went in just as God had told them to do. And the Eternal One shut them all in for the duration of the flood.
17 The deluge continued for 40 days on the earth. 18 The waters kept rising until they lifted up the ark so it floated safely over the land; 19 the torrent continued to swell and increase in momentum until the highest mountain peaks beneath the heavens were covered. 20 In fact, the waters rose and pitched so forcefully over the earth that the mountain peaks disappeared beneath 22 feet of water. 21 And all flesh that moved upon the earth died out—birds, domesticated animals, wild animals, all of the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all human beings. 22 Everything and everyone on the dry land in which God had breathed the breath of life died. 23 God wiped out every living thing from the face of the earth. Every creature He had made—humans, animals, creeping things, and birds—was wiped off the surface of the earth. Only Noah was left and those with him inside the ark. 24 And the waters raged upon the earth for 150 days.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.