The Flood Begins
7 Then the Lord said to Noah, “I have seen that you ·are the best person [alone are righteous] among ·the people of this time [L this generation], so you and your ·family [household] can go into the ·boat [ark]. 2 Take with you seven pairs, each male with its female, of every kind of clean [C in a ritual sense; Lev. 11] animal, and take one pair, each male with its female, of every kind of unclean animal. 3 Take seven pairs of all the birds of the ·sky [heavens], each male with its female. This will allow all these animals to continue living on the earth after the flood. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth. It will rain forty days and forty nights, and I will ·wipe off [blot out] from the ·earth [L face of the ground] every living thing that I have made.”
5 Noah did everything the Lord commanded him.
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the [L water of the] flood came [L on the earth]. 7 He and his wife and his sons and their wives went into the ·boat [ark] to escape the waters of the flood. 8 The clean animals [7:2], the unclean animals, the birds, and everything that ·crawls [creeps] on the ground 9 came to Noah. They went into the ·boat [ark] in groups of two, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. 10 Seven days later the ·flood started [L waters of the flood came on the earth].
11 When Noah was six hundred years old, the flood started. On the seventeenth day of the second month of that year the ·underground springs [L fountains/springs of the deep] ·split [burst] open, and the ·clouds [floodgates; L windows] in the ·sky [heavens] ·poured out rain [L were opened]. 12 The rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights.
13 On that same day Noah and his wife, his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth [9:18—10:32], and their wives went into the ·boat [ark]. 14 They had every kind of wild and tame animal, every kind of animal that ·crawls [creeps] on the earth, and ·every kind of bird [L every bird, every winged creature]. 15 ·Every creature [L All flesh] that had the breath of life came to Noah in the ·boat [ark] in groups of two. 16 One male and one female of ·every living thing [L all flesh] came, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord ·closed the door behind them [L shut them in].
17 ·Water flooded the earth [L The flood continued] for forty days, and as it rose it lifted the ·boat [ark] off the ground. 18 The water continued to rise [L and increase], and the ·boat [ark] floated on ·it above the earth [L the face of the waters]. 19 The water rose so much [L over the earth] that even the highest mountains under the ·sky [heavens] were covered by it. 20 It continued to rise until it was more than ·twenty feet [L fifteen cubits] above the mountains.
21 All ·living things [L flesh] that moved on the earth died. This included all the birds, tame animals, wild animals, and [L swarming] creatures that swarm on the earth, as well as all human beings. 22 So everything on dry land that had the breath of life in ·it [L its nostrils] died. 23 God ·destroyed [blotted/wiped out] from the earth every living thing that was on the ·land [L face of the ground]—every man, animal, ·crawling [creeping] thing, and bird of the ·sky [heavens]. All that ·was left [survived] was Noah and what was with him in the ·boat [ark]. 24 And the waters continued to cover the earth for one hundred fifty days.