Chapter 7
1 Then God instructed Noah, “Take your entire family, including yourself, to the boat, because I have paid attention that you are a righteous man among your peers.
2 Take seven pairs of each ritually pure animal, one male and one female to each pair, and take one pair of each ritually impure animal, one male and one female.
3 Also take seven pairs of each type of bird, male and female, so that they may live on the earth and be able to replenish it.
4 This is because in seven more days, I will cause rain to fall on the earth for forty days and nights—I will wipe out all creatures that I have made that live on the earth!”
5 So Noah did everything that God commanded him.
6 Noah was six hundred years old when this deluge flooded all the earth.
7 Then Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives entered the boat with him just before the floodwaters came.
8 and 9 The ritually pure animals and the ritually impure animals, as well as birds and reptiles, came to Noah and to the boat. They came in pairs of males and females, just as God commanded to Noah.
10 Then the floods occurred for seven days upon earth.
11 When Noah was six hundred years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the water sources on earth and in heaven opened up.
12 So rain fell on earth for forty days and forty nights.
13 Actually on this day (the seventeenth day of the second month), Noah, Shem, Ham and Yafet, along with their wives, came into the boat.
14 They entered along with all different species of animal life, including reptiles of each species that crawl on the ground, and all types of winged species that fly, every type of bird and winged creature.
15 They all came with Noah aboard the boat, pair by pair, from every type of life.
16 Male and female from every type of life came aboard, as God had commanded him; God Himself closed (the entrance) for him (Noah).
17 The flooding occurred on the earth for forty days and nights, and the floodwaters mounted up, and carried the boat and lifted it up high above the ground.
18 So the floodwaters welled up greatly on earth, and the boat floated on the surface of the waters.
19 The floodwaters continued to greatly rise on the earth’s surface, so that all the high mountains were underwater.
20 The floodwaters reached a height of fifteen amah above the mountaintops, and covered them over.1
21 All known life was eradicated—reptiles that crawl, birds, wild animals, all species of insect life that swarm over the earth, and all of mankind.
22 Every type of living being was destroyed and perished.
23 All beings, including humans, animals, reptiles and birds that lived on earth, were wiped out. Only Noah and everything that was present with him survived.
24 The floodwaters were at their maximum height on the earth for 150 days.
1. v. 20: As previously noted, the Hebrew word amah, sometimes referred to as a “cubit,” is a measurement of up to twenty-one inches in height. Using this measurement, according to the text here, the water rose up to three hundred inches (approximately twenty-five feet or 8.3 yards) above the mountaintops.
Chapter 8
1 However, God remembered Noah as well as all the life and the animals that were with him in the boat. So God sent a wind over the earth, and the floodwaters receded.
2 Earth’s water sources dammed up, and the rain clouds in the sky dried up, as the period for rainfall from the sky drew to a close.
3 The floodwaters steadily receded from the ground and had ceased from rising after the 150 days.
4 The boat came ashore on the Ararat mountain range on the seventeenth day of the seventh month.
5 And so the floodwaters continued to recede until the first day of the tenth month. It was then that the tops of mountains appeared.
6 At the end of forty days, Noah opened the door of the boat that he had built.
7 He then let a crow free, but it returned after leaving, until the waters had receded more off of the earth’s surface.1
8 Afterwards, he let a dove free, to see if the water had further receded off of the earth’s surface.
9 But the dove didn’t find any resting spot for itself, so it returned to him (Noah) in the boat, because much water was still covering the earth’s surface. So Noah took the dove in his hand and brought it into the boat.
10 Another seven days passed, and again he sent the dove out of the boat.
11 The dove returned to him at evening, and it held a plucked olive leaf in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the floodwaters had truly receded from the earth’s surface.
12 Yet another seven days went by, and he again sent the dove out, and this time it did not return.
13 So on the first day of the first month when he was 601 years old, the floodwaters were abated from the earth’s surface. Noah took off the ark’s covering; he looked and saw the dry, bare ground.
14 On the seventeenth day of the second month, the land was thoroughly dry.
15 Then God spoke to Noah, saying,
16 “You, your wife, your sons and their wives are to leave the boat.
17 Bring out all the creatures that are with you. All the types should come out: all birds, all animals and all the reptiles that crawl on the ground. They should spread out over the dry land, and be fruitful and reproduce.”
18 And so Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives all left.
19 Along with them, all animals, all reptiles, all birds, all creatures that crawl on the ground, each by its species, left from the boat.
20 Then Noah built an altar to worship the Lord. He took sacrifices from all types of ritually pure animals and from all types of ritually pure birds, and he offered them as whole burnt offerings on the altar.
21 God was greatly pleased with the sacrifice. He then said to Himself, “I will not curse the earth again because of mankind, just because every desire they have from their youth is evil. I will never again strike all life which I have created.
22 As long as earth exists, sowing and reaping seasons, cold and hot seasons: summer and winter, and day and night will never cease from occurring.”
1. v. 7: The word for “crow” (orev in Hebrew) can also mean a raven.
Chapter 9
1 Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Reproduce by having children, and fill the earth.
2 Every animal on earth, every bird in the sky, and everything that crawls on the ground, as well as all the fish of the sea, will fear you. They will be frightened of you and be subject to you.1
3 Every animal that moves and is alive will be your food, like green vegetation. I have provided you with all of this.
4 But don’t eat any meat that still has blood