Genesis
Summary
Genesis 7 narrates the onset of God's judgement through the flood. Following God's command, Noah, his family, and representative pairs of animals enter the ark; then the rains begin and the "fountains of the deep" burst forth. The waters rise and cover the earth, destroying all life not preserved on the ark. The floodwaters prevail for an extended period, demonstrating the thoroughness of the judgement while preserving a faithful remnant for the renewal of creation.
The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the Ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous before Me in this generation.
Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, the male and his mate; and of the animals that are not clean, two, the male and his mate;
and also seven pairs of every kind of bird of the heavens, male and female, to keep their kind alive throughout the earth.
Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will blot out from the face of the ground every living creature I have made."
And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.
Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.
And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the Ark to escape the waters of the flood.
Pairs of clean and of animals that are not clean, and of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground,
male and female, came to Noah and entered the Ark, as God had commanded Noah.
And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, on that day all the fountains of the Great Deep (Tehom Raba) were broken open, and the sluice-gates of the heavens were opened.
And rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights.
On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the Ark.
They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, every feathered thing on every wing.
Pairs of all flesh in which was the breath of life came to Noah and entered the Ark.
The animals entering were male and female of every kind of flesh, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut the door behind him.
For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the Ark high above the earth.
The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the Ark went upon the faces of the waters.
They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains that were under the entire heavens were covered.
The waters rose more than fifteen cubits and covered the mountains.
And all flesh expired that moved on land, birds, livestock, wild animals, every creature that swarmed over the earth, and all mankind.
All in whose nostrils was the breath of the Spirit of lives, all that were on dry land, died.
He blotted out every living substance that was on the face of the ground; mankind and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the sky were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the Ark.
The waters prevailed on the earth for a hundred and fifty days.