This is the story of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, the one blameless man in that age. Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
And the earth was exceedingly corrupt and filled with violence. And when God saw how corrupt the earth was and how corrupt humankind had become on the earth, God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to humankind, for the earth is filled with violence because of them: I am going to blot them out from the earth. Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; cover it with reeds and caulk it inside and outside with pitch. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. And this is how you should make it: the ark should be five hundred feet long, one hundred feet wide, and fifty feet high. Make a skylight for the ark, and finish it two feet from the top. And put an entrance to the ark in its longer side.
“I am going to bring a great flood onto the earth, to exterminate all living creatures: everything on earth will perish. But I promise to rescue you; you will go into the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. And you will take one pair of every kind of creature, male and female, into the ark to stay alive with you. One pair of every kind of bird, animal, and reptile willcome to you, to stay alive. And you will take with you all the food that you need, and store it away, to serve as food for you and for them.” And Noah did everything God had commanded.
And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came onto the earth; in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, all the wells of the great deep burst, and the floodgates of heaven opened. On that day Noah, and Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Noah’s sons, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, went into the ark, and with them every kind of animal, reptile, and bird: one pair of every creature went into the ark with Noah, a male and a female, as God had commanded him.
And the flood came down onto the earth, and the waters rose higher above the earth, and the ark drifted on the waters. And the waters rose higher and higher above the earth, until they covered the highest mountains under heaven. Thirty feet above the mountains the waters rose. And all creatures on earth perished—all birds and all animals and all reptiles and all humans.
And when the waters had risen above the earth for a hundred and fifty days, God remembered Noah and all the creatures that were with him in the ark, and the wells of the deep and the floodgates of heaven were shut. And God swept a wind over the earth, and the waters stopped rising. And at the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters began to subside. And in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters kept subsiding until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.
And in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the waters began to dry from the earth. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
And God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. And bring out every creature that is with you, every bird, animal, and reptile, and let them be fruitful and multiply and spread over all the earth.”
And Noah came out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. And every creature, every animal, bird, and reptile, group by group, came out of the ark.
And God blessed Noah and his sons, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you will fall on every animal, every bird, every creature on earth, and every fish in the sea: they are all in your power. Every creature that moves will be yours to eat; I give them all to you, just as I gave you the green plants. But you must not eat flesh from a still-living animal. And I will require an accounting for the death of every human: I will require it from every animal, and I will require it from every human. Whoever sheds human blood, his blood will be shed; for in his own image did God make humans.”
And God said to Noah and to his sons, “For your part, be fruitful and multiply; spread over the earth and rule it. For my part, I now make a solemn promise to you and to your offspring after you and to every creature that was with you, all birds and animals and reptiles that came out of the ark. And I will keep my promise to you: never again will all creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood, and never again will there be a flood to blot out the earth.”
And God said, “This is the sign of the promise that I make to you and to every creature that was with you, for all ages to come: I am setting my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of my promise to the earth. And whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my promise to you and to every creature, and the waters will never again become a flood to blot out all life. And when the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the eternal promise I have made to every creature on earth.”