7
Chapter 7
God destroys people and animals
1Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘Go into the ship. Take your wife and family with you. I can see that you alone do what is right, among all the people on the earth.
2Take seven of every different kind of clean animal. Take a male and a female together. Take two of every different kind of unclean animal. Take a male and a female together. 3Take seven of every kind of bird. Take males and females. Do this so that they will give birth to young ones. Then each different kind of animal and bird will continue to live on the earth. #7:3 Clean animals are the kinds of animal that God accepted as a sacrifice. God told Noah to take more clean animals so that Noah could offer a sacrifice to God. There would still be animals that remained to give birth to young animals.
4In seven days, I will cause rain to fall on the earth. It will rain for 40 days and 40 nights. In that way, I will destroy every living thing that I have made on the earth.’
5Noah did everything that God told him to do.
6Noah was 600 years old when the deep water covered the earth. 7Noah and his wife went into the ship. His sons and their wives also went in. They all went into the ship to be safe from the deep water. 8Pairs of clean animals and unclean animals came to Noah in the ship. #7:8 God told the animals to go to Noah. Also, pairs of birds and pairs of all the living things that move across the ground came to him. 9Each pair was one male and one female. They all came to Noah in the ship. Everything happened as God had said to Noah. 10After seven days had passed, God sent the deep water to cover the earth.
11When Noah was 600 years old, on the 17th day of the second month, streams of water came up everywhere from below the earth. Also, the water in the heavens poured down on the earth. 12Rain fell on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights.
13On the day that the rain began to fall, Noah and his wife went into the ship. Noah's three sons (Shem, Ham and Japheth) and their three wives also went in. 14With them was every different kind of wild animal and every different kind of farm animal. They also had with them every kind of living thing that moves along the ground. Every different kind of bird and other flying things were there too. 15Pairs of every kind of animal that lived came to Noah and went into the ship. #7:15 The fish and other beings that always live in the sea were safe in the deep water. See Genesis 1:21-25. 16Each pair was one male and one female. This happened in the way that God had told Noah. When they were all in the ship, the Lord shut the door.
17For 40 days, the water on the earth became deeper. The water lifted the ship high above the ground.
18The water became even deeper and completely covered the earth. The ship went safely on top of the water. 19More water came until it covered all the high mountains on the earth. 20The water still became deeper so that it was more than 6 metres higher than the tops of the mountains.
21As a result, everything that had lived on the earth now died. The birds, the farm animals and the wild animals died. Every living thing that moved across the ground died, and so did all the people. 22Everything that lived on the dry land died. Nothing could breathe any more. 23God destroyed everything that lived on the earth. He destroyed people, animals, living things that move across the ground, and birds. God removed them from the earth. Only Noah and his family, together with the animals that were in the ship, stayed alive.
24The deep water covered the earth for 150 days.