Genesis 6

The Wickedness of the World and the Call of Noah

1 When people started multiplying on the earth and daughters were born to them,

2 the sons of God saw the women were fine and married whoever they wanted.

3 Then the Lord said, ‘Humans will not live forever. They are just flesh, so I am capping their days at 120 years.’

4 There were giants on the earth back then. When the sons of God had kids with the daughters of men, their kids became the heroes and legends of old.

5 The Lord saw how wicked people had gotten on earth. Their thoughts and actions were nothing but evil, all the time.

6 God regretted making humans, and His heart was heavy with pain.

7 So the Lord said, ‘I am going to wipe out people from the face of the earth, humans, animals, birds, everything. I regret making them.’

8 But Noah found favor in God’s eyes.

The Call of Noah

9 Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.

10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and full of violence.

12 God saw how bad things had gotten. Everyone was living foul and corrupt.

13 So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to end it. The earth is filled with violence because of people, so I am wiping them out.’

14 ‘Make yourself an ark out of cypress wood. Build it with rooms and coat it with pitch inside and out.’

15 ‘Here is how to build it: 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.’

16 ‘Put a roof on it, leave an 18-inch opening below the roof all around. Put a door on the side and build lower, middle, and upper decks.’

17 ‘I am bringing a flood to wipe out everything with the breath of life under the heavens. Everything on earth will perish.’

18 ‘But I will make a covenant with you. You, your wife, your sons, and their wives will enter the ark.’

19 ‘Bring two of every living creature into the ark, male and female, to keep them alive.’

20 ‘Two of every kind of bird, animal, and creature that moves along the ground will come to you to stay alive.’

21 ‘You are also going to take every kind of food that can be eaten and store it away for you and them.’

22 Noah did everything just like God told him to do.