The Bible story tells that men and women became so wicked that God was sorry he had made the Earth. He looked at the way men and women were living, and determined¹ to punish them by sending a great flood; but there was one good man, and for his sake God saved the Earth. This man was Noah. He called Noah, we are told, and bade him build a great Ark out of wood, with rooms in it for his wife and is sons, and his sons' wives, with one great window and with a mighty² door in the side.

 

The Ark was to be covered with pitch inside and outside, and to be built so well that-it should have room for two of every living thing, with food for each one. Noah, having made the Ark, called two of every living thing upon the Earth-animals, birds, and insects; and, laying in a great quantity of food, he himself, and his wife and his children, with all these other living things, entered the Ark.

 

When they were all in, the windows of the heavens were opened, and the water covered the highest mountains. And in the flood the wicked perished. But God remembered Noah. The rain ceased, the waters passed away, and the sun-light went into the Ark. Then Noah let a raven³ fly from the window of the Ark, and in did not come back to him. Noah then sent out a dove, which flew terrified above the waters and returned to the window of the Ark. After seven days more Noah sent out the dove again, and this time it returned bearing in its bills a leaf of olive.

 

Noah then knew that the Earth was dry, and when he again sent the dove forth⁴ it did not return. Then Noah came out with his family, and on an altar of stones they offered thanks to God. So God was pleased with Noah, and set a bow of light in the sky after the rain.

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