The Great Flood

The LORD tells Noah to enter the ark, gives the final instructions about the animals, and sets the flood's timing. Noah answers with the same steady obedience that has marked him already.

T¹hen 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.

At Noah's six hundredth year, he and his household enter the ark, and the animals come in as commanded. After the seven-day wait, the floodwaters arrive.

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.

The flood breaks open from below and above, and rain falls for forty days and nights. Noah, his family, and the living creatures enter the ark, and the LORD shuts them in.

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.

For forty days the waters keep rising, lifting the ark and then overtaking the whole earth. Even the highest mountains disappear beneath the flood.

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.

Every creature on dry land dies, and all living things are blotted out except Noah and those with him in the ark. The waters continue to prevail for one hundred fifty days.

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.