Genesis, A Royal Epic. Loren R. Fisher
Enoch walked with the gods,53 after he fathered Methuselah,
three hundred years.
He fathered sons and daughters.
23 Now all the days of Enoch
equaled three hundred and sixty-five.
24 Enoch walked with the gods;
then he was no more, because Elohim took him.
25 Methuselah lived a hundred and eighty-seven years;
he fathered Lamech.
26 Methuselah lived, after he fathered Lamech,
seven hundred and eighty-two years.
He fathered sons and daughters.
27 When all the days of Methuselah
equaled nine hundred and sixty-nine, he died.
28 Lamech lived a hundred and eighty-two years; he fathered a son.
29 He called forth his name, “Noah,” saying,
“This one will comfort us from our work,
And from the toil of our hands,
From the ground that Yahweh cursed.”54
30 Lamech lived, after he fathered Noah,
five hundred and ninety-five years.
He fathered sons and daughters.
31 When all the days of Lamech
equaled seven hundred and seventy-seven, he died.
32 When Noah was five hundred years old,
Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
6:1 When the human beings began to multiply,
upon the face of the ground,
and daughters were born to them,
2 the sons of the gods saw that the daughters
of the human beings were beautiful,
they took for themselves wives from any of those they chose.
3 Yahweh said:
“My spirit cannot be bottled up55 in human beings forever,
Inasmuch as, they are flesh.
Their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
4 The Nephilim56 were on earth in those days, and afterwards,
for the sons of the gods did mate with the daughters of the human
beings;
they bore [children] to them—
they were the heroes of old,
the men of renown.
5 Yahweh saw how great was the evil of the human beings on the
earth,
and how every form of the thoughts of their minds was only evil, all
of the day.
6 Yahweh regretted that he had made the human beings on the earth.
He was in labor with his thoughts.57
7 Yahweh said:
“I will blot out the human beings whom I formed,
from upon the face of the ground—
from human beings to domestic animals,
to moving ones, and to the birds of the heavens,
because I regret that I made them.”
8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh.
9a These are the stories of Noah.
9b Noah was a righteous man;
He was perfect in his generation.
With the gods,58 Noah walked.
10 Noah fathered three sons:
Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11 The earth was found corrupt before the gods;59
The earth was full of violence.
12 Elohim saw the earth;
Yes, it was corrupt,
For all flesh60 had corrupted their ways upon earth.
13 Elohim said to Noah:
“The end of all flesh was declared before me,61
for the earth is filled with violence because of [all flesh],62
and yes, I am the one who shall destroy [all flesh] with the
earth.
14 Make for yourself an ark of gopher planks.
Of reeds63 you shall make the ark.
You shall pitch it—inside and outside—with pitch.
15 This is how you shall make it:
the ark shall be three hundred cubits long,
its width fifty cubits,
and its height thirty cubits.
16 A sky-light you shall make for the ark.
You shall finish it a cubit higher.
Now you shall put the door of the ark in its side.
With a lower, a second, and a third [deck] you shall make it.
17 Certainly, I am the one who shall bring the flood—
waters upon the earth—
to destroy all flesh that has in it spirit of life under the
heavens.
All which is on the earth will perish.
18 But I will establish my covenant with you;
you shall come into the ark,
you and your sons, and your wife,
and the wives of your sons with you.
19 And from all the living, from all flesh, two from all,
you shall bring to the ark to live with you;
male and female, they shall be.
20 And from the birds with their kind,
and from the domestic animals with their kind,
and from all the moving ones of the ground with their kind,
two from all [kinds] will come to you to be kept alive.
21 And you, take for yourself from all food that is eaten;
you shall gather [it] unto you;
It will be for you and for them to eat.”
22 Noah did according to all that Elohim commanded him, so he did.
7:1 Yahweh said to Noah:
“Enter, you and all your house, into the ark,
for I have found that you are righteous before me in this age.
2 From all the clean domestic animals,
you shall take seven [and] seven, a male and his mate,
and from the domestic animals that are not clean,
it is two, a male and his mate,
3 also, from the birds of the heavens,
seven [and] seven, male and female,
to keep alive seed upon the face of all the earth.
4 For in seven days, I am the one who shall bring rain upon the
earth