The flood and the covenant with Noah: judgment, rescue and a new beginning

6Now when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, ²the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took as wives whomever they chose. ³So the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days shall be 120 years.” ⁴The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and afterward as well—when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men. And they bore them children who became the mighty men of old, men of renown. ⁵Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time. ⁶And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. ⁷So the LORD said, “I will blot out man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—every man and beast and crawling creature and bird of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” ⁸Noah, however, found favor in the eyes of the LORD. ⁹This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. ¹⁰And Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. ¹¹Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and full of violence. ¹²And God looked upon the earth and saw that it was corrupt; for all living creatures on the earth had corrupted their ways. ¹³Then God said to Noah, “The end of all living creatures has come before Me, because through them the earth is full of violence. Now behold, I will destroy both them and the earth. ¹⁴Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and out. ¹⁵And this is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. ¹⁶You are to make a roof for the ark, finish its walls a cubit from the top, place a door in the side of the ark, and build lower, middle, and upper decks. ¹⁷And behold, I will bring floodwaters upon the earth to destroy every creature under the heavens that has the breath of life. Everything on the earth will perish. ¹⁸But I will establish My covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁹And you are to bring two of every living creature into the ark—male and female—to keep them alive with you. ²⁰Two of every kind of bird and animal and crawling creature will come to you to be kept alive. ²¹You are also to take for yourself every kind of food that is eaten and gather it as food for yourselves and for the animals.” ²²So Noah did everything precisely as God had commanded him.

7Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. ²You 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; ³and seven pairs of every kind of bird of the air, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of all the earth. ⁴For 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.” ⁵And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him. ⁶Now Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came upon the earth. ⁷And Noah and his wife, with his sons and their wives, entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. ⁸The clean and unclean animals, the birds, and everything that crawls along the ground ⁹came to Noah to enter the ark, two by two, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. ¹⁰And after seven days the floodwaters came upon the earth. ¹¹In 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. ¹²And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. ¹³On 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— ¹⁴they and every kind of wild animal, livestock, crawling creature, bird, and winged creature. ¹⁵They came to Noah to enter the ark, two by two of every creature with the breath of life. ¹⁶And they entered, the male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in. ¹⁷For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and the waters rose and lifted the ark high above the earth. ¹⁸So the waters continued to surge and rise greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters. ¹⁹Finally, the waters completely inundated the earth, so that all the high mountains under all the heavens were covered. ²⁰The waters rose and covered the mountaintops to a depth of fifteen cubits. ²¹And every living thing that moved upon the earth perished—birds, livestock, animals, every creature that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind. ²²Of all that was on dry land, everything that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. ²³And 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. ²⁴And the waters prevailed upon the earth for 150 days.

8But God remembered Noah and all the animals and livestock that were with him in the ark. And God sent a wind over the earth, and the waters began to subside. ²The springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained. ³The waters receded steadily from the earth, and after 150 days the waters had gone down. ⁴On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. ⁵And the waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible. ⁶After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark ⁷and sent out a raven. It kept flying back and forth until the waters had dried up from the earth. ⁸Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground. ⁹But the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned to him in the ark, because the waters were still covering the surface of all the earth. So he reached out his hand and brought her back inside the ark. ¹⁰Noah waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. ¹¹And behold, the dove returned to him in the evening with a freshly plucked olive leaf in her beak. So Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. ¹²And Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove again, but this time she did not return to him. ¹³In Noah’s six hundred and first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth. So Noah removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. ¹⁴By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was fully dry. ¹⁵Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶“Come out of the ark, you and your wife, along with your sons and their wives. ¹⁷Bring out all the living creatures that are with you—birds, livestock, and everything that crawls upon the ground—so that they can spread out over the earth and be fruitful and multiply upon it.” ¹⁸So Noah came out, along with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹Every living creature, every creeping thing, and every bird—everything that moves upon the earth—came out of the ark, kind by kind. ²⁰Then Noah built an altar to the LORD. And taking from every kind of clean animal and clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar. ²¹When the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, He said in His heart, “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from his youth. And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done. ²²As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.”

9And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. ²The fear and dread of you will fall on every living creature on the earth, every bird of the air, every creature that crawls on the ground, and all the fish of the sea. They are delivered into your hand. ³Everything that lives and moves will be food for you; just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you all things. ⁴But you must not eat meat with its lifeblood still in it. ⁵And surely I will require the life of any man or beast by whose hand your lifeblood is shed. I will demand an accounting from anyone who takes the life of his fellow man: ⁶Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood will be shed; for in His own image God has made mankind. ⁷But as for you, be fruitful and multiply; spread out across the earth and multiply upon it.” ⁸Then God said to Noah and his sons with him, ⁹“Behold, I now establish My covenant with you and your descendants after you, ¹⁰and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth—every living thing that came out of the ark. ¹¹And I establish My covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” ¹²And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between Me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: ¹³I have set My rainbow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. ¹⁴Whenever I form clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, ¹⁵I will remember My covenant between Me and you and every living creature of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. ¹⁶And whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of every kind that is on the earth.” ¹⁷So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between Me and every creature on the earth.” ¹⁸The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. ¹⁹These three were the sons of Noah, and from them the whole earth was populated. ²⁰Now Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. ²¹But when he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent. ²²And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside. ²³Then Shem and Japheth took a garment and placed it across their shoulders, and walking backward, they covered their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned away so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. ²⁴When Noah awoke from his drunkenness and learned what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵he said, “Cursed be Canaan! A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.” ²⁶He also declared: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the servant of Shem. ²⁷May God expand the territory of Japheth; may he dwell in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant.” ²⁸After the flood, Noah lived 350 years. ²⁹So Noah lived a total of 950 years, and then he died.