9. came to Noah. They went into the boat in groups of two, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah.
10. Seven days later the flood started.
11. When Noah was six hundred years old, the flood started. On the seventeenth day of the second month of that year the underground springs split open, and the clouds in the sky poured out rain.
12. The rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights.
13. On that same day Noah and his wife, his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives went into the boat.
14. They had every kind of wild and tame animal, every kind of animal that crawls on the earth, and every kind of bird.
15. Every creature that had the breath of life came to Noah in the boat in groups of two.
16. One male and one female of every living thing came, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord closed the door behind them.
17. Water flooded the earth for forty days, and as it rose it lifted the boat off the ground.
18. The water continued to rise, and the boat floated on it above the earth.
19. The water rose so much that even the highest mountains under the sky were covered by it.
20. It continued to rise until it was more than twenty feet above the mountains.