The Great Flood

1Then 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 ³⁷every 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 ³⁸with 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 prevailed upon 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. ³⁹

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.