1 The time came when there were a lot of people living on the earth, and some of the women were very beautiful.

2 And in those days there were some spirit men, called the Sons of God. When they saw some of those beautiful women, they married the ones they wanted. 3-4 Their children grew up to be big strong fighting men called Nef-ilim. And then for a lot of years, people told stories about what those great fighters did.[a]

But the Lord looked at what was happening and said, “I put my life spirit into people to keep them alive, but I will not let that spirit stay in them forever. They will only live for 120 years and then they will die.”

5 The Lord looked at the people on the earth and saw that they were getting worse and worse. They were always thinking the wrong way and working out ways to do bad things all the time.[b] 6 And so the Lord was really sad. It was like a pain in his heart, and he said to himself, “I am really sorry that I made people. 7 I made all those people, but now, I am going to kill them all, and I will kill all the animals that I made too. I will even kill all the little animals that move around on the ground, and I will kill all the birds that fly in the sky.”

8 But the Lord was pleased with Noah.

9 This is the story about Noah and his family.

Noah was a good man. At that time, Noah was the only man on the earth that lived God's way and so God was really happy with him.[c] 10 Noah had 3 sons named Shem, Ham, and Jay-feth.

11 Everyone else on the earth was living in a rubbish way. They were fighting and hurting each other all the time. 12 So when God looked and saw that all the people were doing really bad things, 13 he said to Noah, “Look, nobody is living the way I want them to live. They are fighting all the time and people are getting hurt. I have made up my mind, I am going to kill everybody and every other living thing on this earth.”

14 Then God said to Noah, “I want you to make a really big boat called an Ark. Make it out of wood and make rooms inside it. Then paint it on the inside and on the outside with tar to keep the water out.

15 Listen Noah, this is how big I want you to make the boat. It has to be 140 metres long, and 23 metres wide, and 14 metres high. 16 I want you to put a roof over it and just under the roof make a window half a metre high all the way around. And put a big door in the side of the boat. Make 3 floors inside the boat, one floor for the bottom and 2 more floors upstairs.

17 You see, soon I will send a lot of flood water, and it will cover the whole earth and everything that breathes will die.[d] 18 But do not worry, Noah, I am making a strong promise to you. I will look after you, your wife, your sons, and their wives too. You will all be safe inside that boat.[e]

19-20 Take one boy and one girl of every kind of animal and bird into the boat with you. I will make all those animals come to you so that they can be safe too.

21 Go out into the countryside and pick up as much food as you can and put it inside the boat. You will need a lot of food for your family and a lot of food for all the animals too.” 22 Then Noah did everything that God said.[f]

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