The Great Flood

Throughout the years to follow, the human race grew and became so sinful that God destroyed the earth and its inhabitants with a great flood, except for God-fearing Noah and his family.

As time passed, men and women did so much evil that people were thinking sinister, destructive thoughts and committing violent acts all day and every day. God was grieved by this and knew He must destroy mankind from the face of the earth. But there was one man who found favor in God’s eyes; he was so righteous that other men and women couldn’t find anything wrong with him. His name was Noah. Noah walked with God.

God had a plan. He would flood the earth and wipe out every living creature on it. But He wanted to save Noah and his family and many species of animals. So He gave Noah the exact instructions he needed to make a boat large enough to carry at least two of every kind of animal on the earth. That’s a big boat!

Then God said to Noah, “I will bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens. Everything will die. But I will make a covenant with you. You and your family will enter the boat with at least two of all the animal kinds (male and female), and I will keep them alive with you. Take food on the boat as well for you and for the animals.”

So Noah built the boat and the day came that God said to him, “Go into the boat with your family.” Then God brought animals to Noah from all over the earth, and God shut them in. (Notice: as with judgment, so with salvation, God takes the initiative.)

Then deep springs burst up from the ground, and the floodgates of heaven opened and poured down. The rain kept coming for 40 days so that the water rose higher and higher and lifted the boat up and up. The water rose so much that the highest mountains on earth were covered.

Well, just as God said, every living creature on the earth died—except for Noah, his family, and the animals on Noah’s boat. Then the water receded steadily so that after five months the water was low enough for the boat to rest on the mountains of Ararat. When the earth was completely dry, God told Noah to come out of the boat with his family and the animals so they could multiply and fill the earth again.

Then Noah built an altar to God and sacrificed burnt offerings. God saw Noah’s worship and smelled the pleasing aroma and said in His heart, “Never again will I curse the ground for the sinful things its people do even though the imagination of their heart is wicked from childhood. Never again will I destroy all living creatures.”

So Noah and his wife, their sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives came out of the great boat. From them came people who scattered over the earth.