The Message Prayerful Reading Bible Sampler - Flipbook - Page 30
G enesis 8 12
the windows of Heaven were thrown open.
Rain poured for forty days and forty nights.
13-16 That’s the day Noah and his sons
Shem, Ham, and Japheth, accompanied by
his wife and his sons’ wives, boarded the
ship. And with them e very kind of wild and
domestic animal, right down to all the kinds
of creatures that crawl and all kinds of birds
and anything that flies. They came to Noah
and to the ship in p
airs—everything and anything that had the breath of life in it, male
and female of e very creature came just as
God had commanded Noah. Then God shut
the door behind him.
17-23 The flood continued forty days and
the waters rose and lifted the ship high over
the Earth. The waters kept rising, the flood
deepened on the Earth, the ship floated on
the surface. The flood got worse until all
the highest mountains were covered—the
high-water mark reached twenty feet above
the crest of the mountains. Everything died.
Anything that m
oved—
dead. Birds, farm
animals, wild animals, the entire teeming
exuberance of life—dead. And all people—
dead. Every living, breathing creature that
lived on dry land died; he wiped out the
whole works—people and animals, crawling
creatures and flying birds, every last one of
them, gone. Only Noah and his company on
the ship lived.
24 The floodwaters took over for 150 days.
8
1-3 Then God turned his attention to
Noah and all the wild animals and farm
animals with him on the ship. God caused
the wind to blow and the floodwaters began
to go down. The underground springs were
shut off, the windows of Heaven closed and
the rain quit. Inch by inch the water lowered.
After 150 days the worst was over.
4-6 On the seventeenth day of the seventh
month, the ship landed on the Ararat mountain range. The water kept going down until
the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth
month the tops of the mountains came into
view. After forty days Noah opened the window that he had built into the ship.
7-9 He sent out a raven; it flew back and
forth waiting for the floodwaters to dry up.
Then he sent a dove to check on the flood
conditions, but it couldn’t even find a place
to perch—water still covered the Earth. Noah
reached out and caught it, brought it back
into the ship.
10-11 He waited seven more days and sent
out the dove again. It came back in the eve-
ning with a freshly picked olive leaf in its
beak. Noah knew that the flood was about
finished.
12 He waited another seven days and sent
the dove out a third time. This time it didn’t
come back.
13-14 In the six-hundred-first year of Noah’s
life, on the first day of the first month, the
flood had dried up. Noah opened the hatch of
the ship and saw dry ground. By the twenty-
seventh day of the second month, the Earth
was completely dry.
15-17 God spoke to Noah: “Leave the ship,
you and your wife and your sons and your
sons’ wives. And take all the animals with
you, the whole men
agerie of birds and
mammals and crawling creatures, all that
swarming extravagance of life, so they can
reproduce and flourish on the Earth.”
18-19 Noah disembarked with his sons and
wife and his sons’ wives. Then all the animals, crawling creatures, birds—every creature on the face of the E
arth—left the ship
family by family.
20-21 Noah built an altar to God. He selected
clean animals and birds from e very species
and offered them as burnt offerings on the
altar. God smelled the sweet fragrance and
thought to himself, “I’ll never again curse the
ground because of people. I know they have
this bent toward evil from an early age, but
I’ll never again kill off everything living as
I’ve just done.
22 For
as long as Earth lasts,
planting and harvest, cold and heat,
Summer and winter, day and night
will never stop.”
9
1-4 God blessed Noah and his sons:
He said, “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill the
Earth! Every living c reature—birds, animals,
fish—will fall under your spell and be afraid
of you. Y
ou’re responsible for them. All living creatures are yours for food; just as I gave
you the plants, now I give you e verything
else. Except for meat with its lifeblood still in
it—don’t eat that.
5 “But your own lifeblood I will avenge; I
will avenge it against both animals and other
humans.
6-7 Whoever
sheds human blood,
by humans let his blood be shed,
Because God made humans in his image
reflecting God’s very nature.
You’re here to bear fruit, reproduce,