7 The Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and your entire household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. 2 From every clean animal take with you seven pairs,[a] a male and his female. From the animals that are not clean, take two, a male and his female. 3 Also from the ⎣clean⎦ birds of the sky take seven and seven, male and female, ⎣and of all the unclean birds, one pair, a male and a female⎦[b] to keep their offspring alive on the face of the whole earth. 4 In seven days I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. Every living thing that I have made, I will wipe off the face of the earth.”
5 Noah did everything that the Lord commanded him.
The Flood
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood[c] came, and water covered the earth.
7 Noah went into the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, because of the waters of the flood. 8 Clean animals, animals that are not clean, birds, and everything that creeps on the ground 9 went into the ark with Noah two by two (male and female), just as God had commanded Noah.
10 After seven days, the waters of the flood came on the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that very day, all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates[d] of the sky were opened. 12 The rain came down on the earth for forty days and forty nights.
13 On that same day Noah, Noah’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons along with them entered the ark. 14 They went in with every animal according to its kind, all the livestock according to their kinds, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and everything that flies according to its kind, flying birds of every sort. 15 Pairs of all the animals[e] that have the breath of life in them went to Noah in the ark. 16 A male and female of each animal that breathes went in, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut Noah in.
17 The flood kept coming on the earth for forty days. The waters became deeper and lifted up the ark until it floated high above the earth. 18 The water kept increasing and overwhelmed the earth, and the ark was carried along on the surface of the water. 19 The water overwhelmed the earth. All the high mountains that were under the entire sky were covered. 20 The waters rose more than twenty feet above the mountains and covered them. 21 All living creatures[f] that moved on the earth perished, including birds, livestock, wild animals, every creeping thing that crawls on the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything that breathed the breath of life through its nostrils, that is, everything that was on the dry land, died. 23 Every living thing that was on the face of the earth was wiped out, including mankind, livestock, creeping things, and birds of the sky. They all were wiped off the earth. Only Noah was left, as well as those who were with him in the ark. 24 The waters overwhelmed the earth for one hundred fifty days.
Footnotes
- Genesis 7:2 Literally by sevens. There is a difference of opinion whether seven pairs of each clean animal were to be taken onboard or seven of each clean animal: three pairs and one extra for sacrifice.
- Genesis 7:3 The words in the half-brackets are not present in the Hebrew text but are in the Greek Old Testament. It seems the Hebrew copyist’s eye might have jumped from the occurrence of female before the first half-bracket to the occurrence of female before the second half-bracket. The loss of this phrase would lead to the removal of the word clean near the beginning of the verse.
- Genesis 7:6 Or deluge
- Genesis 7:11 Or windows
- Genesis 7:15 Literally all flesh
- Genesis 7:21 Literally all flesh