7 Then Yahweh said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, because I’ve seen that you’re the only one who obeys me in this generation. 2 Take in seven male and female pairs of every kind of ‘clean’ animal, and one male and female pair of the ‘unclean’ animals, 3 as well as seven male and female pairs of every kind of flying bird in order to preserve their kinds on the earth. 4 Seven days from now I’ll send forty days and nights of rain on the earth, and I’ll eliminate every living thing that I’ve made that’s still on the ground. 5 So Noah did everything that Yahweh had instructed him to do.

6 Noah was 600 years old when the flood covered the earth, 7 and he went into the wooden chest along with his wife, his three sons and their wives, in order to escape from the floodwaters.[ref] 8 ‘Clean’ and ‘unclean’ animals, the birds, and everything that lived on the ground 9 came to Noah in male and female pairs and went into the chest, just like God had instructed Noah. 10 Then when the seven days were up, water started to flood the earth.

11 When Noah was 600 years old (and around the beginning of May), deep underwater geysers in the ocean started spouting out water, and the skies began to drop heavy rain[ref] 12 that continued day and night for forty days. 13 That was the very day that Noah and Yefet (Japheth) and Shem and Ham and their wives had all entered the wooden chest. 14 They had with them every kind of living creature, including every kind of livestock and every other kind of creature that lives on the land, and every kind of bird and everything else that flies. 15 They had come to Noah in order to enter the chest—two by two of every creature with the breath of life. 16 So pairs of males and females of every creature entered just as God had instructed Noah, then Yahweh closed the door and they were shut in.

17 Then the flood came onto the earth for forty days, and the water rose so that the wooden chest was lifted up right off the land. 18 The water continued to rise and get deeper on the earth, and the chest floated along on top of the water. 19 Eventually the water on the earth got so deep that all the high mountains everywhere under the sky were under water—20 in fact the water rose over seven metres above the tops of them. 21 By then every living creature that lived on the earth had drowned—birds, livestock, animals, every creature that swarms on the earth, and all humankind. 22 Everything that had the breath of the spirit of life in its nostrils, everything that lived on dry land, died. 23 That’s how Yahweh completely annihilated every living creature off the earth, including humankind and livestock and crawling creatures and even the birds. Everything was annihilated except for Noah and those with him in the floating chest, 24 and the earth remained in full flood for 150 days.