God
said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled
with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.[1] So make yourself an ark of cypress wood. This is how
you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits
wide and thirty cubits high.[2] Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an
opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make
lower, middle and upper decks.[3] I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life
under the heavens. You are to bring into the ark two
of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and
store it away as food for you and for them.”[4]
The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the
ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and
one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, [5]and also seven pairs of every kind
of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.”
Noah
was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.[6] Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all
creatures that move along the ground, [7] male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God
had commanded Noah. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s
life, on the seventeenth day of the
second month[8] —on that day all the springs of
the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth 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, everything with wings. [9] Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them
came to Noah and entered the ark. The animals going in were male and female of every living
thing, as God had commanded Noah.
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 floated on the surface of the water. [10]
The
waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.
At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day
of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.[11] The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and
on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.[12]
After
forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a
raven, and it kept flying back and forth
until the water had dried up from the earth.[13] Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded
from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere
to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth. He waited
seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. [14] When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its
beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had
receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the
dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.[15]
By
the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the
earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of
the ground was dry. [16] By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
Then
God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and
their wives. Bring out every kind of living
creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that
move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and
increase in number on it.” [17]
Then
Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean
animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. [18] The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never
again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human
heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” [19]
[1] An odd
solution for violence.
[2] About
450 feet long, 75 feet long, and forty-five feet tall. For comparison’s sake, a Carnival Cruise ship
can range in size from 850 feet to 1,000 feet.
There is no reason to believe, however, that the Ark offered shuffleboard or soft-serve ice
cream.
[3] These
instructions were not as specific as they could have been.
[4] Good
thinking.
[5] I bet
Noah was pissed when God changed it from two to seven.
[6] The
story doesn’t tell us how old Noah was when he build the Ark.
My thinking is he was much younger and was a complete weirdo about it
for five hundred years, then when the flood came, he was all like, “I told you
so!”
[7] I’m
thinking none of the animals were all that
clean.
[8] February
17.
[9] We’ve
already established this point.
[10] Which
was a good place for it.
[11] July 17
[12] October
1
[13] Forty
days after what? I’m not sure about
this. But I’m guessing its around
November 10.
[14]
November 17?
[15]
Evidently he was in no hurry.
[16] And he still didn’t leave the boat.
[17] After
all that time on the boat, everyone was pretty horny.
[18] It paid
to be one of the dirty animals.
[19] i.e.
Not by means of a flood. He still has plenty of other ways.
