Noah and the Flood

Many generations passed after Adam and Eve. And as the years went on, people grew more and more wicked. The earth was filled with violence. Every thought in every human heart was only evil, all the time.

God looked at what his good world had become, and he was grieved.

But among all the people on earth, there was one man who was different. His name was Noah. Noah walked with God.

God told Noah his plan. He was going to send a great flood to cleanse the earth. But he was going to save Noah and his family. "Build an ark," God said, and he gave Noah exact instructions — the size, the shape, how many decks, where to put the door.

Noah believed God. He started building, even though there was no flood in sight.

For years, Noah built. People must have laughed at him — a giant wooden boat in the middle of dry land. But Noah kept working, trusting God's word.

When the ark was finished, God told Noah to bring his wife, his three sons, their wives, and two of every kind of animal — male and female — onto the ark. Seven days later, the rain began.

For forty days and forty nights, water poured from the sky and burst up from the ground. The whole earth was covered. Every living thing that was not on the ark was swept away.

But the ark floated. God remembered Noah.

Slowly the waters went down. The ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Noah sent out a raven, then a dove. The first time the dove came back — no dry land. The second time, she returned with a fresh olive leaf. The third time, she did not return at all. The land was dry.

Noah, his family, and all the animals stepped off the ark. The very first thing Noah did was build an altar and offer a sacrifice to God in thanksgiving.

God made a promise — a covenant — with Noah and with all living creatures: "Never again will I flood the entire earth. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." And as a sign of that promise, God set a rainbow in the sky.