Genesis 6:9-22
New Catholic Bible
Salvation through the Righteous.[a] 9 This is the story of Noah. Noah was a just and blameless man at that time and he walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11 But the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and filled with violence. 12 God saw that the earth was corrupt, for every person on the earth was perverse in what he did.
13 God therefore said to Noah, “I have decided to end everything, for they have filled the earth with their violence. Behold, I will destroy the entire creation. 14 Build an ark[b] of gopher wood and divide the ark into compartments and caulk it with bitumen inside and out. 15 This is how you shall make it: the ark will be three hundred cubits long, fifty wide, and thirty high. 16 Make a roof on the ark one cubit high.[c] Place a door in the side of the ark. Make it with three decks: lower, middle, and higher.
17 “Behold, I will send a flood. The waters shall cover the earth to destroy the life of everything under the skies that has the breath of life in it. Everything on the earth shall perish. 18 But I will establish a covenant with you.
“Go into the ark, you and your sons, your wife, and the wives of your sons. 19 Bring into the ark two of everything that lives, of all flesh. Bring a male and female of each species into the ark to save them. 20 Bring two birds of each species, two animals of each species, and two reptiles of each species with you to save them. 21 As for you, gather every type of food and take it with you. It shall nourish both you and them.”
22 Noah did all of this, exactly as God had commanded him.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Genesis 6:9 The first part of the following passage (6:9-22) is from the Priestly tradition and links up with the end of chapter 5. First, in three verses (6:11-13), it uses the language of corruption and violence to summarize the entire history of sin and the decree of condemnation, both of which have been described in a more diffuse way in the Yahwist tradition. This is followed by the order to build the ark, which is found only in the Priestly version, and finally the announcement of the flood with the command to enter the ark. This passage from the Priestly tradition is followed by a repetition of the command to enter the ark and of the announcement of the flood from the Yahwist tradition (7:1-5). Note the difference of the two traditions when it comes to the number of animals brought into the ark: the Yahwist account, more popular in character, presupposes that in those very ancient times a distinction was already made between clean and unclean animals, whereas in fact the distinction was of later origin and codified in the Mosaic Law.
The New Testament praises the faith of Noah (Heb 11:7) and speaks of the harm done his contemporaries by their unbelief, because they were unable to accept the impulse to conversion that came from him as he was building the ark (1 Pet 3:20). - Genesis 6:14 Ark, in Hebrew teba, is probably connected with the Egyptian, teb(t), basket, sarcophagus, and perhaps with the Akkadian, tabu, the processional boat of the gods, or with Akkadian, elippu tibitu, a kind of boat. The same word is used in Ex 2:3, 5 for the basket in which Moses was saved.
- Genesis 6:16 A cubit was about 50 cm or one and a half feet. The ark was about 156 meters long, 26 meters wide, and 15 meters high (440 x 72 x 44 feet). It was a floating parallelepiped of about 55,000 or 60,000 cubic meters (82,000 or 90,000 cubic feet).
