THE PEOPLE GROW VERY WICKED. GOD SAYS HE WILL DESTROY THEM BY A FLOOD. HE COMMANDS NOAH TO BUILD AN ARK AND GO INTO IT. NOAH OBEYS. THE FLOOD IS SENT AND DESTROYS EVERYTHING THAT LIVES ON THE DRY LAND. NOAH COMES OUT OF THE ARK AFTER THE FLOOD.
AFTER a long while, when there came to be many more people living in the world, they grew very wicked. Their hearts were filled with wicked thoughts and they sinned in every thing they did, for they cared nothing about pleasing God, and never even tried to obey him. Therefore God was angry with them, and said he would punish them by sending a flood that should cover the earth with deep water, and drown all the people, the animals, the birds, and every thing that lived upon the ground. For almost all the people in the world were very wicked, and yet not quite all; there was one good man whose name was Noah. The Bible tells us he was a just man, and that he walked with God, as Enoch did. Therefore God loved Noah, and told him of the flood he was going to send.
And God commanded Noah to build an ark. This was a great boat. It was to be very large, with rooms in it, and a window, and a great door in its side, and was to be three stories high. And God told Noah that when the ark was finished, he and his sons and their wives should go into it. And he commanded Noah to take in with him some of every kind of beast, and of every kind of bird, and of every kind of insect, to keep them alive while the flood should be on the earth; for all that were not in the ark would be drowned.
Then Noah began to build the ark. It took him a great while to build it, perhaps more than a hundred years; but, as we have read, men lived much longer then than they do now. And Noah not only worked at building the ark—the Bible says he was a preacher; he used to speak to the people about God, and about the punishment that was coming upon them for their sins. But they would not repent, nor believe what he told them; so that he had to hear their wicked words and see their wicked acts, all the time he was building the ark. Yet he worked on patiently, until at last he finished it as God had commanded him.
Then God spoke to Noah and told him to come, with all his family, into the ark; for God said he had seen him to be a good man among all those wicked men who were living on the earth. And God told Noah to bring the birds and the beasts also with him into the ark, for in seven days he would send the rain on the earth, and every thing that was living on the dry land should be drowned. And Noah did as God commanded. He was six hundred years old when the flood came on the earth. And he went with his wife, and his three sons and their wives, into the ark, and took the beasts, the birds, and the insects, in with him. When they were all safe inside, God shut them in.
After seven days the rain began, and it rained without stopping, forty days and forty nights. The Bible says the windows of heaven were opened; this means that the rain came down not only in little drops, as we see it come now, but it came as if poured out of great windows up in the sky. And the springs, the creeks, the rivers and the great ocean, all began to rise up and overflow the land. After a while the water came to where the ark was, underneath and around it; it rose higher and higher till the ark floated and was lifted up from the place where Noah had been building it so long, and the ground everywhere began to be covered.
What now were those men to do who would not obey God, nor listen to the preaching of Noah? Before the rain came they thought there would be no flood, and that Noah wanted only to make them afraid. Now the flood had come, and they saw that all he had told them was true. How glad they would have been to go with him into the ark, but it was too late! No doubt they climbed up to the highest places on the hills and mountains; but the hills and mountains were covered at last; there was no other place for them to go, and all the people in the world, except those few in THE ark, were drowned. And every beast and bird and little insect except those in the ark, were drowned also. Then all the earth was covered with water. There was no land to be seen anywhere; only the ark could be seen floating alone, with the water all around it and the sky above.
But God remembered Noah, and took care of him and of those who were with him, through all that dreadful storm. He kept the ark safe till the rain stopped, and the waters began to flow back again into the seas and rivers and springs underground, where they were before the flood. After Noah had been in the ark a hundred and fifty days, the waters were gone down so much that the ark rested on the top of a mountain, called Ararat. There it stood, resting on the top of the mountain, for more than two months. By that time the waters were lower still, and the tops of other mountains could be seen peeping above them. And Noah opened the window of the ark and let a raven go; and the raven flew about over the water, and roosted at night on the tops of the mountains, or on the roof of the ark, but it never came back to Noah again. Then Noah sent out another bird; it was a dove. He sent it that it might fly off and see whether the waters had left the ground dry yet. But they had not left it dry. Although the tops of the mountains were not covered, the rest of the ground was; and the dove found no pleasant place with trees and flowers, where she would like to stay away from her mate; so she came back to the window of the ark, and Noah put out his hand and took her in.
Then Noah waited seven days longer and sent her out again, and in the evening she came back to him as before, but this time with a leaf in her mouth, plucked off from an olive tree. When Noah saw the leaf, he knew that the waters must have gone down greatly, or the dove could not have found it. God had taught the dove to pluck that leaf and carry it to Noah, so that he might know the ground would soon be dry. And he waited another seven days and sent the dove forth once more; but she did not come back to him again. For by this time no doubt the woods were pleasant to fly about in, much pleasanter than the ark, where she had been shut up so long. And beside, God kept the dove from going back to Noah, so that he might be sure it was almost time for him to come out of the ark.
And Noah looked and saw that the ground was dry. And God spoke to him and told him to come out OF the ark, and to bring out also, his wife and his sons and their wives, and the animals, the birds and the insects, that had been in the ark with him. So Noah came out and brought every living thing, and they walked on the dry ground. And Noah built an altar, as Abel had done, and offered up animals and birds upon it to the Lord, who had saved him and his family from the flood, while all the other people in the world were drowned.
And God spoke kindly to Noah and his sons, and said they should be masters over everything living on the earth: and God told them they might kill the animals for food. He had given to Adam only the fruits which grew on the trees and the bushes, for food; but now, after the flood, he said that men might kill and eat any animal they chose.
And God promised that he would never send another flood on the earth to drown all the people as this one had done. And he gave Noah a token, that was, something to make him remember and believe God's promise, so that he never need be afraid of a flood any more. This token was a beautiful thing, and God set it up in the sky, where Noah could often see it, and as often as he should see it he would think of God's promise. The token that God gave Noah was the rainbow.
Noah lived after the flood many years: but when he was nine hundred and fifty years old he died.