And Noe was five hundred years old, and he begot three sons, Sem,
[a] Cham, and Japheth.
And it came to pass when men began to be numerous upon the earth,
and daughters were born to them,
that the [b] sons of God having seen
the daughters of men that they were beautiful, took to themselves
wives of all whom they chose.
And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall certainly not remain among
these men for ever, because they are flesh, but their days shall be an
hundred and twenty years.
Now the giants were upon the earth in those days; and after that
when the sons of God were wont to go in to the daughters of men, they
bore children to them, those were the giants of old, the men
of renown.
And the Lord God having seen that the wicked actions of men were
multiplied upon the earth, and that every one in his heart was
intently brooding over evil continuallv,
then God laid it to heart that he had made man upon the earth, and
he pondered it deeply.
And God said, I will blot out man whom I have made from the face
of the earth, even man with cattle, and reptiles with flying creatures
of the sky, for I am [c] grieved that I
have made them.
But Noe found grace before the Lord God.
And these are the generations of Noe. Noe was a just man;
being perfect in his generation, Noe was well-pleasing to God.
But the earth was corrupted before God, and the earth was filled
with iniquity.
And the Lord God saw the earth, and it was corrupted; because all
flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth.
And the Lord God said to Noe, [e] A
period of all men is come before me; because the earth has been filled
with iniquity by them, and, behold, I destroy them and the earth.
Make therefore for thyself an ark of square timber; thou shalt make
the ark in [f] compartments, and thou
shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
And thus shalt thou make the ark; three hundred cubits the length
of the ark, and fifty cubits the breadth, and thirty cubits the height
of it.
Thou shalt narrow the ark in making it, and in a cubit above thou
shalt finish it, and the door of the ark thou shalt make [g] on the side; with lower, second, and
third stories thou shalt make it.
And behold I bring a [h] flood of
water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of
life under heaven, and whatsoever things are upon the earth shall
die.
And I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou shalt enter
into the ark, and thy sons and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with
thee.
And of all cattle and of all reptiles and of all wild beasts, even
of all flesh, thou shalt bring by [i]
pairs of all, into the ark, that thou mayest feed them with thyself:
male and female they shall be.
0f all winged birds after their kind, and of all cattle after
their kind, and of all reptiles creeping upon the earth after their
kind, come in to thee, male and female to be fed with thee.
And thou shalt take to thyself of all kinds of food which ye eat,
and thou shalt gather them to thyself, and it shall be for thee and
them to eat.
And Noe did all things whatever the Lord God commanded him, so did
he.
[a]Alex. Chaph.
[b]Alex. angels of God.
[c]Gr. I have thought or
reasoned. Alex. e)qumw&qhn. I became
angry.
[d]Alex. Chaph.
[e]Gr. The time of every man.
[f]Gr. nests.
[g] out of the side.
[h]Gr. flood, water.
[i]Gr. two, two.
[English translation of the Septuagint by Sir Lancelot Charles Lee
Brenton (1807-1862) originally published by Samuel Bagster & Sons,
Ltd., London, 1851]