1 Then the Lord said to Noah, ^p“Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that ^qyou are righteous before me in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of all ^rclean animals,¹ the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, 3 and seven pairs² of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. 4 For in seven days ^sI will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, ^tand every living thing³ that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” 5 ^uAnd Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.

6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood.

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled ^kthe pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again ^lcurse¹ the ground because of man, for ^mthe intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. ⁿNeither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 ^oWhile the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, ^pday and night, shall not cease.”