1 Yahweh said to Noah, “Go into the boat now, you and your family. I know that you are the only person in all the world today who does what is right. 2 Take some animals on to the boat. Take some of the ones that you can eat, seven males and seven females of each kind. And take some of the tabooed ones that you must not eat, one male and one female of each kind. 3 And also take seven male birds and seven female birds of each kind. You must take all those animals and birds so that they will stay alive now and so that they will increase again in the world later on.

4 “In seven days I will send rain. The rain will keep on falling for forty days and forty nights. It will keep on and on. It will destroy everything I have made in the world, the birds, the animals and the people.” 5 And Noah did everything that Yahweh told him to do.

6 At the time when the first rain fell, Noah was 600 years old. 7 Noah went inside the boat with his wife and his sons and their wives. They went in to keep alive. 8 And all the male and female animals and all the male and female birds went inside the boat, the ones that they could eat and the tabooed ones they couldn't eat. 9 They went in as God had told Noah.

10 Then they waited and waited for seven days. And then the first rain fell on the ground.

11 Noah was 600 years old. One month had already passed and now it was full moon, and a great amount of water burst out of the springs under the ground. And the heavens opened and the rain poured down from above. 12 The rain kept on and on falling, it didn't stop for forty days and nights.

13 But on the day when the first rain fell, Noah and his wife and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and their wives went into the boat that they had made. 14 All the many animals and birds, those that lived in the bush and those that people looked after, they all went into the boat, big ones and little ones. 15 Male and female, every kind that breathed, Noah took them all into the boat. 16 Noah did everything God had told him to do. Then Yahweh shut the door of the boat, but Noah and the others were already inside.

17 The rain fell from above for forty days and nights. And the water bubbled up from under the ground. It covered the land and it rose up and up until the boat began to float. 18 The water kept on rising and getting deeper and deeper until the boat was moving freely as the water carried it here and there. 19 Then the water still kept rising until it covered the high rocks and the big hills, and even the mountains. 20 It kept on rising and rising until it was seven metres above the tops of the mountains. And there the water stopped.

21 All the other animals and birds and people died. 22 Everything that lived on the earth, everything that breathed died. 23 Yahweh destroyed everything. Only Noah and his family, his wife and his sons and their wives, and the animals that went into the boat, they alone stayed alive.

24 And the flood stayed for five months.