>Genesis 7-9 (The Message)
>
>Genesis 7
>  1 Next God said to Noah, "Now board the ship, you and all your 
> family-out of everyone in this
>generation, you're the righteous one.
>
>  2-4 "Take on board with you seven pairs of every clean animal, a 
> male and a female; one pair of
>every unclean animal, a male and a female; and seven pairs
>of every kind of bird, a male and a female, to insure their survival 
>on Earth. In just seven days I
>will dump rain on Earth for forty days and forty nights.
>I'll make a clean sweep of everything that I've made." 5 Noah did 
>everything God commanded him.
>
>  6-10 Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters covered the 
> Earth. Noah and his wife and sons and
>their wives boarded the ship to escape the flood. Clean
>and unclean animals, birds, and all the crawling creatures came in 
>pairs to Noah and to the ship,
>male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. In seven
>days the floodwaters came.
>
>  11-12 It was the six-hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second 
> month, on the seventeenth day of
>the month that it happened: all the underground springs
>erupted and all 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 every 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 pairs-everything and anything that had the breath of 
>life in it, male and female of
>every 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 moved-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.
>
>Genesis 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 evening 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 menagerie
>of birds and mammals and crawling creatures, all that brimming 
>prodigality 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 Earth-left
>the ship family by family.
>
>  20-21 Noah built an altar to God. He selected clean animals and 
> birds from every 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."
>
>Genesis 9
>  1-4 God blessed Noah and his sons: He said, "Prosper! Reproduce! 
> Fill the Earth! Every living
>creature-birds, animals, fish-will fall under your spell
>and be afraid of you. You're responsible for them. All living 
>creatures are yours for food; just as
>I gave you the plants, now I give you everything 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,
>       lavish life on the Earth, live bountifully!"
>
>  8-11 Then God spoke to Noah and his sons: "I'm setting up my 
> covenant with you including your
>children who will come after you, along with everything alive
>around you-birds, farm animals, wild animals-that came out of the 
>ship with you. I'm setting up my
>covenant with you that never again will everything living
>be destroyed by floodwaters; no, never again will a flood destroy the Earth."
>
>  12-16 God continued, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making 
> between me and you and
>everything living around you and everyone living after you. I'm
>putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me 
>and the Earth. From now on, when
>I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears
>in the cloud, I'll remember my covenant between me and you and 
>everything living, that never again
>will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow
>appears in the cloud, I'll see it and remember the eternal covenant 
>between God and everything
>living, every last living creature on Earth."
>
>  17 And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I've set 
> up between me and everything
>living on the Earth."
>
>  18-19 The sons of Noah who came out of the ship were Shem, Ham, 
> and Japheth. Ham was the father of
>Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah; from these
>three the whole Earth was populated.
>
>  20-23 Noah, a farmer, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank 
> from its wine, got drunk and
>passed out, naked in his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan,
>saw that his father was naked and told his two brothers who were 
>outside the tent. Shem and Japheth
>took a cloak, held it between them from their shoulders,
>walked backward and covered their father's nakedness, keeping their 
>faces turned away so they did
>not see their father's exposed body.
>
>  24-27 When Noah woke up with his hangover, he learned what his 
> youngest son had done. He said,
>
>    Cursed be Canaan! A slave of slaves,
>       a slave to his brothers!
>    Blessed be God, the God of Shem,
>       but Canaan shall be his slave.
>    God prosper Japheth,
>       living spaciously in the tents of Shem.
>    But Canaan shall be his slave.
>
>  28-29 Noah lived another 350 years following the flood. He lived a 
> total of 950 years. And he died.