Genesis 7
7
The Flood Begins
1Then the Lord said to Noah, “I have seen that you are the best person among the people of this time, so you and your family can go into the boat. 2Take with you seven pairs, each male with its female, of every kind of clean animal, and take one pair, each male with its female, of every kind of unclean animal. 3Take seven pairs of all the birds of the sky, each male with its female. This will allow all these animals to continue living on the earth after the flood. 4Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth. It will rain forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe off from the earth every living thing that I have made.”
5Noah did everything the Lord commanded him.
6Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came. 7He and his wife and his sons and their wives went into the boat to escape the waters of the flood. 8The clean animals, the unclean animals, the birds, and everything that crawls on the ground 9came to Noah. They went into the boat in groups of two, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. 10Seven days later the flood started.
11When Noah was six hundred years old, the flood started. On the seventeenth day of the second month of that year the underground springs split open, and the clouds in the sky poured out rain. 12The rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights.
13On that same day Noah and his wife, his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives went into the boat. 14They had every kind of wild and tame animal, every kind of animal that crawls on the earth, and every kind of bird. 15Every creature that had the breath of life came to Noah in the boat in groups of two. 16One male and one female of every living thing came, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord closed the door behind them.
17Water flooded the earth for forty days, and as it rose it lifted the boat off the ground. 18The water continued to rise, and the boat floated on it above the earth. 19The water rose so much that even the highest mountains under the sky were covered by it. 20It continued to rise until it was more than twenty feet above the mountains.
21All living things that moved on the earth died. This included all the birds, tame animals, wild animals, and creatures that swarm on the earth, as well as all human beings. 22So everything on dry land that had the breath of life in it died. 23God destroyed from the earth every living thing that was on the land—every man, animal, crawling thing, and bird of the sky. All that was left was Noah and what was with him in the boat. 24And the waters continued to cover the earth for one hundred fifty days.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version, Copyright © 2005 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.