Scripture Readings

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Genesis 7:11-8:3 (Vespers, 1st reading)

11
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12
And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.
13
On the very same day Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark –
14
they and every beast after its kind, all cattle after their kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort.
15
And they went into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life.
16
So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.
17
Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.
18
The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters.
19
And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered.
20
The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered.
21
And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man.
22
All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died.
23
So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive.
24
And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.
1
Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.
2
The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.
3
And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased.