Noah was a righteous man and walked with God. Seeing that the earth was corrupt and filled with violence, God instructed Noah to build an Ark in which he, his wife, his sons, and their wives, together with male and female of all living terrestrial creatures, would be saved from the waters.
Noah entered the Ark in his six hundredth year, and on the 17th day of the second month of that year the greatest catastrophe of all time occurred. “The fountains of the Great Deep burst apart and the floodgates of heaven broke open” and rain fell for forty days and forty nights until the highest mountains were covered to a depth of 15 cubits, and all terrestrial-based life perished except Noah and those with him in the Ark.
After 150 days, “God remembered Noah … and the waters subsided” until the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. On the 27th day of the second month of Noah’s six hundred and first year the earth was dry. Then Noah built an altar and made a sacrifice, and God made a covenant with Noah that man would be allowed to eat every living thing but not its blood, and that God would never again destroy all life by a flood.