Noach

Noah, a righteous man in his generation, is told to build an ark of gopher wood, sealed with pitch, and to bring his family and pairs of every living creature inside — seven pairs of the clean animals. The flood comes: forty days of rain, the springs of the deep burst open, and every living thing outside the ark is destroyed. The waters hold the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

The ark comes to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Noah sends out a raven, then a dove, which finally returns with an olive leaf. Leaving the ark, Noah builds an altar and offers sacrifices. God blesses Noah and his sons, permits eating meat but not blood, demands a reckoning for human bloodshed, and sets the rainbow in the cloud as the sign of a covenant never again to destroy the earth by flood.

Noah plants a vineyard, drinks its wine, and lies uncovered in his tent; Ham sees him, and Shem and Japheth cover their father without looking. Waking, Noah curses Ham's son Canaan and blesses Shem and Japheth. The nations descend from Noah's three sons and spread out — until, at Babel, a united humanity builds a tower to reach the heavens, and God confuses their language and scatters them. The line of Shem runs down to Terah and his son Abram, who journeys with his family from Ur as far as Haran.