The Flood

1The Lord told Noah:

Take your whole family with you into the boat, because you are the only one on this earth who pleases me. 2Take seven pairs of every kind of animal that can be used for sacrifice+ and one pair of all others. 3Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird with you. Do this so there will always be animals and birds on the earth. 4Seven days from now I will send rain that will last for 40 days and nights, and I will destroy all other living creatures I have made.

5-7 Noah was 600 years old when he went into the boat to escape the flood, and he did everything the Lord had told him to do. His wife, his sons, and his daughters-in-law all went inside with him. 8-9He obeyed God and took a male and a female of each kind of animal and bird into the boat with him. 10Seven days later a flood began to cover the earth.

11-12 The water under the earth started gushing out everywhere, the sky opened like windows, and rain poured down for 40 days and nights. All this began on the seventeenth day of the second month of the year. 13On that day Noah and his wife went into the boat with their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. 14They took along every kind of animal, tame and wild, including the birds. 15Noah took a male and a female of every living creature with him, 16just as God had told him to do. And when they were all in the boat, the Lord closed the door.

17-18For 40 days the rain poured down without stopping. And the water became deeper and deeper, until the boat started floating high above the ground. 19-20Finally, the mighty flood was so deep that even the highest mountain peaks were about seven meters below the surface of the water. 21Not a bird, animal, reptile, or human was left alive anywhere on earth. 22-23 The Lord destroyed everything that breathed. Nothing was left alive except Noah and the others in the boat. 24A hundred fifty days later, the water started going down.