Genesis 7

Entering the Ark

1The LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark with your whole household. Among this generation, I have seen that you are righteous before me. 2Take seven pairs of every clean animal, each male with its mate, and one pair of every animal that is not clean, a male with its mate. 3Take seven pairs of the birds in the sky too, male and female, to keep their offspring alive across the earth. 4In seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. I will wipe from the ground every living thing I have made.”

5Noah did everything the LORD commanded him.

6Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came over the earth. 7Noah went into the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives to escape the floodwaters.

8Clean animals and animals that were not clean, birds, and everything that crawls on the ground 9came to Noah in the ark two by two, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. 10After those seven days, the floodwaters came over the earth.

The Flood Begins

11In the 600th year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the springs of the great deep burst open, and the windows of the heavens opened. 12Rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights.

13That very day Noah entered the ark with his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Noah's wife, and his sons' three wives. 14With them were wild animals of every kind, livestock of every kind, every kind of creature that crawls on the earth, and birds of every kind—every bird, everything with wings. 15They came to Noah in the ark two by two, from all flesh that had the breath of life. 16A male and a female of every kind of flesh entered, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.

The Waters Cover the Earth

17For forty days the flood was on the earth. The waters rose, lifting the ark clear of the ground. 18The waters grew stronger and rose higher over the earth, and the ark moved across their surface. 19The waters grew stronger still, until every high mountain beneath the whole sky was covered. 20The waters rose fifteen cubits above the mountains and covered them.

21All flesh moving on the earth died: birds, livestock, wild animals, every swarming creature, and all humans. 22Everything on dry land with the breath of life in its nostrils died.

23Every living thing on the ground was wiped out—humans, livestock, crawling creatures, and birds in the sky. They were wiped from the earth. Only Noah and those with him in the ark remained. 24The waters continued to overwhelm the earth for 150 days.