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God told Noah to get ready for a flood
1 After that, God said to Noah, “You are the only man that lives the right way. Get your family and take them into the big boat. 2 You have to take every sort of animal with you into that big boat. You know the sorts of animals that are right for you to give to me? Well, get 7 males and 7 females from each of those sorts of animals. And get all the other animals too, the animals that are not right to give to me. Get one male and one female from each of those sorts of animals. They all have to go on to the big boat. 3 And the birds too. They have to go on to the big boat. Get 7 males and 7 females from each sort of bird. That’s how you can keep those birds and animals alive, so that there will always be birds and animals on the earth.
4 You see, I’m going to send a big rain. That rain will come in 7 days time. Then it will keep on raining all the time for 40 days. The flood water will come up and wash away all the things that I have made.”
5 So Noah did everything just the way God told him to.
The flood water came
6-7 Noah was 600 years old at the time that he went into the big boat to be safe from the flood. Noah, and his wife, and his 3 sons, and their wives too, they all went into the big boat. 8-9 And a big mob of animals came to Noah, and he took them into the boat too, just like God told him to. There were all sorts of animals. There were animals that were the right sort to give to God, and animals that were not the right sort to give to God. And there were birds and even animals that crawl around on the ground. And there were males and females of each sort of animal, and they went in 2 at a time. They all came together on that big boat, just like God wanted them to.
10 Then, 7 days later, the flood water came, just like God said. 11-16 Noah was 600 years old at the time that the flood water came. It came on the 17th day of the 2nd month of that year.
Noah, and his wife, and his sons, and their wives too, they all went into the big boat. The names of Noah’s sons were Shem, and Ham, and Jafeth, and they each had a wife. They all went into the boat with all the animals. There were wild animals, and animals that are not wild, and animals that crawl around on the ground. And all the birds were there too. There were males and females of every bird and animal on that big boat. All of the different sorts of animals went into that big boat with Noah. They went in 2 at a time, just like God told Noah. And after the last animal went into the boat with Noah and his family, God shut the door.
Then, on that same day, the rain came out of the sky. It rained really hard all the time. It was like God opened up a big window in the sky, and rain poured down. And water came up from springs, and from everywhere under the ground too. It kept on raining all the time for 40 days. 17 The flood water kept on getting higher and higher for all those 40 days, and the big boat started to float on the water. 18 The water got deeper and deeper, but that boat was all right, it floated on top of the water, high above the ground.
19 The water got so deep that it covered all the big mountains everywhere. 20 It covered the tops of those mountains with about 7 metres of water. 21 All the people and animals that lived on the earth died. Only the people and animals on that big boat didn’t die. The flood water killed all the birds, and it killed all the animals, the wild animals and the animals that are not wild, and it killed all the animals that crawl around on the ground, and all the people.* 22 They all died, everything that breathed air and lived on the ground. 23 There were no people or animals left on the earth. There were no birds, and no animals that crawl around on the ground, and no other animals, and no people. God killed them all and washed them away. The only ones that stayed alive were the animals and birds on the big boat with Noah and his family.
24 And that flood went on for a long time. The water covered the earth for 5 months.
* 7:21 Matthew 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-27; 2 Peter 3:6