The Great Flood

¹ Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. ² You are to take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate;^* a pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate;^{* 3} and seven pairs of every kind of bird of the air, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of all the earth. ⁴ For seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living thing I have made.”

⁵ And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him.

⁶ Now Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came upon the earth. ⁷ And Noah and his wife, with his sons and their wives, entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. ⁸ The clean and unclean animals, the birds, and everything that crawls along the ground ⁹ came to Noah to enter the ark, two by two, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.

¹⁰ And after seven days the floodwaters came upon the earth. ¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates^* of the heavens were opened. ¹² And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.

¹³ On that very day Noah entered the ark, along with his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and his wife, and the three wives of his sons — ¹⁴ they and every kind of wild animal, livestock, crawling creature, bird, and winged creature. ¹⁵ They came to Noah to enter the ark, two by two of every creature with the breath of life. ¹⁶ And they entered, the male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.

¹⁷ For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and the waters rose and lifted the ark high above the earth. ¹⁸ So the waters continued to surge and rise greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters. ¹⁹ Finally, the waters completely prevailed upon the earth, so that all the high mountains under all the heavens were covered.

²⁰ The waters rose and covered the mountaintops to a depth of fifteen cubits.²¹ And every living thing that moved upon the earth perished — birds, livestock, animals, every creature that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind. ²² Of all that was on dry land, everything that had the breath^* of life in its nostrils died. ²³ And every living thing on the face of the earth was destroyed — man and livestock, crawling creatures and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth, and only Noah and those with him in the ark remained.

²⁴ And the waters prevailed upon the earth for 150 days.