Old/New Testament

God destroys people and animals

7 Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘Go into the ship. Take your wife and family with you. I can see that you alone do what is right, among all the people on the earth.

² Take seven of every different kind of clean animal. Take a male and a female together. Take two of every different kind of unclean animal. Take a male and a female together. ³ Take seven of every kind of bird. Take males and females. Do this so that they will give birth to young ones. Then each different kind of animal and bird will continue to live on the earth.^[a]

⁴ In seven days, I will cause rain to fall on the earth. It will rain for 40 days and 40 nights. In that way, I will destroy every living thing that I have made on the earth.’

⁵ Noah did everything that God told him to do.

⁶ Noah was 600 years old when the deep water covered the earth. ⁷ Noah and his wife went into the ship. His sons and their wives also went in. They all went into the ship to be safe from the deep water. ⁸ Pairs of clean animals and unclean animals came to Noah in the ship.^[b] Also, pairs of birds and pairs of all the living things that move across the ground came to him. ⁹ Each pair was one male and one female. They all came to Noah in the ship. Everything happened as God had said to Noah. ¹⁰ After seven days had passed, God sent the deep water to cover the earth.

¹¹ When Noah was 600 years old, on the 17th day of the second month, streams of water came up everywhere from below the earth. Also, the water in the heavens poured down on the earth. ¹² Rain fell on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights.

¹³ On the day that the rain began to fall, Noah and his wife went into the ship. Noah's three sons (Shem, Ham and Japheth) and their three wives also went in. ¹⁴ With them was every different kind of wild animal and every different kind of farm animal. They also had with them every kind of living thing that moves along the ground. Every different kind of bird and other flying things were there too. ¹⁵ Pairs of every kind of animal that lived came to Noah and went into the ship.^{[c] 16} Each pair was one male and one female. This happened in the way that God had told Noah. When they were all in the ship, the Lord shut the door.

¹⁷ For 40 days, the water on the earth became deeper. The water lifted the ship high above the ground.

¹⁸ The water became even deeper and completely covered the earth. The ship went safely on top of the water. ¹⁹ More water came until it covered all the high mountains on the earth. ²⁰ The water still became deeper so that it was more than 6 metres higher than the tops of the mountains.

²¹ As a result, everything that had lived on the earth now died. The birds, the farm animals and the wild animals died. Every living thing that moved across the ground died, and so did all the people. ²² Everything that lived on the dry land died. Nothing could breathe any more. ²³ God destroyed everything that lived on the earth. He destroyed people, animals, living things that move across the ground, and birds. God removed them from the earth. Only Noah and his family, together with the animals that were in the ship, stayed alive.

²⁴ The deep water covered the earth for 150 days.

The deep water goes away

8 Then God thought of Noah, and all the wild animals and the farm animals that were with him in the ship. He caused a wind to blow over the earth. As a result, the water began to go down. ² Streams of water stopped coming up from below the earth. Rain stopped coming down from the sky. ³ The deep water continued to go down for 150 days. ⁴ On the 17th day of the seventh month, the ship stopped on the ground. It was sitting on the top of Ararat mountains. ⁵ The water continued to go down until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains appeared above the water.

⁶ After 40 more days, Noah opened a window in the ship. ⁷ He sent a raven to fly away. The raven flew away from the ship and then it returned. It continued to do this until the earth was dry.

⁸ Then Noah sent out a dove. He wanted to see if the water had gone away from the top of the ground. ⁹ But the dove could not find anywhere to stand. Water still covered all the ground. So it returned to Noah in the ship. Noah put out his hand and took the dove back into the ship. ¹⁰ He waited for seven days. Then he sent the dove out of the ship again. ¹¹ The dove returned to Noah in the evening. It carried a fresh leaf from an olive tree in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the water had gone down. ¹² He waited for seven more days. Then he sent the dove out again. This time, it did not return to Noah.^[d]

¹³ Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the first month, the water that had covered the earth was now gone. The ground had become dry. Noah made a hole in the roof of the ship and he looked around. He saw that the top of the ground was dry. ¹⁴ By the 27th day of the second month, the earth had become completely dry.

¹⁵ God said to Noah, ¹⁶ ‘Come out of the ship. Bring your wife, your sons and their wives with you. ¹⁷ Bring every different kind of living animal out of the ship. Bring out the birds, the animals, and the living things that move across the ground. Now they may give birth to young ones again. They can grow in number all over the earth.’

¹⁸ Noah went out of the ship, together with his wife, his sons and their wives. ¹⁹ All the living animals also went out of the ship. The birds and the living things that move across the ground all went out. Every different kind of animal came out of the ship, each of them in its own group.

God makes a promise to Noah

²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to make sacrifices to the Lord. He took one from each kind of clean animal and clean bird. He offered them to the Lord as sacrifices which he burned on the altar.^[e]

²¹ The Lord smelled the sacrifice and it made him happy. The Lord said to himself, ‘I will never curse the ground again because of the bad things that people do. From the time that they are children, they want to do bad things. But I will never again destroy everything that breathes, as I have done this time.

God's covenant with Noah

9 God blessed Noah and his sons. He said to them, ‘Give birth to many children so that you become very many people. Your descendants will live all over the earth. ² All the animals and all the birds will be afraid of you. You have authority over them. You also have authority over all the living things that move across the ground and all the fish in the sea. ³ You may now eat anything that lives and moves. Before, I gave you the green plants to eat. Now I give you everything to eat as your food.

⁴ But you must not eat meat that still has the blood of life in it.

⁵ If any person or animal kills a human, I will certainly punish them. Their punishment will be death.

⁷ But as for you, you should give birth to many children so that you become very many people. There will be many people and they will live all over the earth.’

⁸ God said to Noah and to his sons, ⁹ ‘I promise you that I will obey the covenant that I am making with you.^[h] I promise this to you and to all your descendants. ¹⁰ I also promise this to all the animals and birds that came out of the ship with you. That is everything that lives on the earth. ¹¹ This is the covenant that I promise to keep: I will never cause water to destroy all living things on the earth again. Deep water will never again come again to destroy the earth.’

¹² Then God said, ‘I will show you clearly that I have made this covenant with you, and with every living animal. I will keep this promise for ever, for as long as people live on the earth. ¹³ I have put my rainbow among the clouds in the sky. It will show you clearly that I have made this covenant with everything on the earth. ¹⁴ When I bring clouds over the earth, a rainbow will sometimes appear. ¹⁵ Then I will remember the covenant that I have made with you and with all the different kinds of living things. Never again will the water become so deep that it destroys everything that lives. ¹⁶ When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember my covenant. It is a promise that I have made with every kind of living thing on the earth.’

¹⁷ Then God said to Noah, ‘The rainbow will show you that I will certainly keep my promise. I will keep my covenant that is between me and everything that lives on the earth.’

Noah's sons

¹⁸ The names of Noah's sons were Shem, Ham and Japheth. They all came out of the ship with Noah. Ham later became the father of a son called Canaan. ¹⁹ All the people who live on the earth are descendants of Noah's three sons.

²⁰ Noah was a farmer. He was the first person to plant vines.

²¹ He used the grapes to make wine. One day, he drank some of the wine and he became drunk. He lay inside his tent and he slept. He was not wearing any clothes. ²² Canaan's father, Ham, saw that Noah was not wearing any clothes. He went out of the tent. He told his two brothers what he had seen. ²³ Then Shem and Japheth took Noah's coat and they put it between their shoulders. They walked into Noah's tent with their backs to Noah. In this way they covered their father with the coat. They looked away from their father so that they did not see him. They did this because Noah was not wearing any clothes.^[i]

²⁴ Later, when he was no longer drunk with the wine, Noah woke up. He found out what his youngest son, Ham, had done. ²⁵ He said, ‘I curse Canaan! He will become a slave that must serve his brothers.’

²⁶ Noah also said, ‘I praise the Lord, the God of Shem! Let Canaan become Shem's slave! ²⁷ I pray that God will make the land of Japheth and his descendants grow bigger. I pray that the descendants of Japheth will share good things with Shem. I pray that Canaan will become Japheth's slave.’^[j]

²⁸ Noah lived for 350 years after God covered the earth with deep water. ²⁹ In his whole life, Noah lived for 950 years. Then he died.

John the Baptist prepares a way for Jesus

3 While Jesus still lived in Nazareth, a man called John the Baptist was speaking a message from God. He was doing this in the wilderness in Judea.^{[a] 2} He told people, ‘You have done many wrong things. You must turn away from them and change how you live. Do this now, because the kingdom of heaven has come very near.’

³ God's prophet Isaiah spoke about this man John long ago. He said:

⁴ John wore clothes made from the hair of a camel. He also wore a belt made from leather. His usual food was locusts and honey from the wilderness.^[c]

⁵ Many people went to listen to John. They lived in Jerusalem and all over the country called Judea and many other places near the Jordan River. ⁶ The people told God about all the wrong things that they had done. Then John baptized them in the Jordan River.^[d]

⁷ Many Pharisees and Sadducees came to John.^[e] They wanted John to baptize them. He said to them, ‘You are like dangerous snakes. God is angry. You are trying to run away from him. But he will soon punish people like you. ⁸ You have to show that you are sorry. Change how you live. Stop doing things that God does not like. ⁹ Do not say to yourselves, “We are in the family of Abraham. God will surely not punish us.” Listen! God can take these stones and make children for Abraham out of them! ¹⁰ You are like trees that have bad fruit. God has an axe ready to use. He will cut down every tree that does not make good fruit. He will throw those trees into the fire.

¹¹ I baptize you with water. This shows that you want to change the way that you live. But another person will come soon.^[f] He is greater than I am. I am not good enough even to carry his shoes for him. This other person will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ¹² He is like a farmer that brings the wheat home from his field. He uses a special tool to throw the wheat up in the air. He does this to make the wheat seeds separate from what remains. Then he cleans his yard. He carefully stores all the seeds to keep them safe. But he burns everything else in a great fire that nobody can put out.’

John baptizes Jesus

¹³ Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River. He wanted John to baptize him. ¹⁴ But John tried to stop him. He said to Jesus, ‘I should ask you to baptize me. You should not ask me to baptize you.’

¹⁵ Jesus replied, ‘This time, do what I ask you to do. We must do everything correctly, as God wants it.’ So John did what Jesus asked him to do.

¹⁶ When John baptized him, Jesus came up out of the water. At that moment, the skies opened. Jesus saw God's Spirit coming down. He came down like a dove and he stayed on Jesus. ¹⁷ Then a voice spoke from heaven, which said, ‘This man is my Son and I love him. He makes me very happy.’