A reading from the book of Genesis.

Then the Lord said to Noah, Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen

that you are righteous before me in this generation.

Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the

animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven

pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face

of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth, 40 days and 40 nights,

and every living thing that I have made, I will blot out from the face of the ground. And Noah did

all that the Lord had commanded

him. Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth, and Noah and his

sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood,

of clean animals and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the

ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah,

and after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. In the 600th year of Noah's life,

in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great

deep burst forth, and the windows of the month. On that day, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth

and the windows of the heavens were opened, and rain fell upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights.

On the very same day, Noah and his sons, Shim and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the

three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark, they and every beast, according to its kind, and all

the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth

according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. They went into

the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life, and those that

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