Genesis 6

reviewed Worded for an eighth-grade reader; the reading is the Translation's. Read the Translation with its notes.

1 When the human race began to grow many on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of the elohim saw that the daughters of the human race were good. So they took wives for themselves, any they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, "My spirit will not hold court in the human forever, since he too is flesh. His days will be 120 years." 4 The Nephilim were in the land in those days, and afterward too, when the sons of the elohim came to the daughters of the human race and they bore children to them. These were the mighty ones of long ago, the men with a name.

5 The LORD saw how vast the badness of the human was in the land. Every plan his heart shaped was only bad, all day long. 6 The LORD was sorry that he had made the human in the land, and he was pained to his heart. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe the human I created off the face of the ground: humans, beasts, creeping things, and the flying creatures of the sky. For I am sorry that I made them." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

9 This is the family history of Noah. Noah was a just man, whole among the people of his time. Noah walked with the elohim. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11 Now the land was ruined in the sight of the elohim, and the land was filled with violence. 12 God looked at the land, and it was ruined, for all flesh had ruined its way on the land. 13 Then God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before me, for the land is filled with violence because of them. Look, I am about to ruin them along with the land. 14 Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make the ark with nests, and cover it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to make it: the ark is to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. 16 Make a gleam for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top. Put the doorway of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks.

17 As for me, look, I am about to bring the flood, waters on the land, to ruin all flesh under the sky that has a spirit of life in it. Everything in the land will breathe its last. 18 But I will make my covenant stand with you. You will come into the ark, you and your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. 19 From every living thing, from all flesh, you are to bring two of each into the ark, to keep them alive with you. They are to be male and female. 20 Two of every kind of flying creature, of every kind of beast, and of every kind of creeping thing on the ground will come to you, to keep them alive. 21 And take with you some of every food that is eaten, and gather it to yourself. It will be food for you and for them." 22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him. That is what he did.