נח

Noach (the Hebrew name for “Noah”) was a righteous man who walked with God. But the earth around him had become corrupt and full of lawlessness. God saw that people and creatures were ruining their ways, and God told Noah that a great Flood would come to end all flesh on earth.

God gave Noah a surprising plan: “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.” The ark was to have compartments and be covered inside and out with pitch so water could not seep in. God even gave the exact size, three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high, with an opening for daylight near the top. The entrance was to be on the side, and the ark would have three decks.

God promised a covenant with Noah and said Noah, his wife, his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives would enter. Two of every kind of bird, animal, and creeping thing, male and female, would come to stay alive. Noah also stored food for everyone inside. Noah did everything exactly as God commanded.

When the ark was finished, God said, “Go into the ark with all your household, for you alone have I found righteous in this generation.” God also told Noah to take seven pairs of pure animals and seven pairs of birds, and two of the animals that were not pure. In seven days, rain would begin.

Noah was six hundred years old when the Flood came. On the appointed day, the fountains of the great deep burst apart and the floodgates of the sky broke open. Rain fell for forty days and forty nights. Noah and his family entered the ark with the animals, and God shut them in.

The waters rose until even the highest mountains were covered, fifteen cubits above them. Everything on dry land with the breath of life perished. Only Noah and those with him remained.

After the waters swelled for one hundred fifty days, God remembered Noah and all the creatures with him. God sent a wind, the rain stopped, and the waters began to recede. In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat, and later the mountain tops appeared.

After forty more days, Noah opened the window and sent out a raven, and it went to and fro. Then he sent a dove to see if the ground was showing. The dove returned because it could not find a resting place. Noah waited seven days and sent it again; it came back toward evening with a plucked olive leaf. After another seven days, he sent the dove out once more, and it did not return.

When the earth was finally dry, God told Noah to come out with his family and to bring out every living thing so they could swarm and increase on the earth. Noah built an altar and offered burnt offerings from the pure animals and birds. God promised never again to destroy all living beings by a flood, and God set a bow in the clouds as the sign of the covenant.

From Shem, Ham, and Japheth, families spread into many clans and nations. Long after, everyone still shared one language. In Shinar they made bricks, used bitumen for mortar, and began a city with a tower “with its top in the sky.” God confounded their speech so they could not understand one another, and the place was called Babel, because from there God scattered them over the whole earth.