1 And when men had begun to multiply over the earth, and they had begotten daughters, 2 the sons of God, seeing the daughters of men who were beautiful, had taken for themselves wives from all, whom they chose. 3 And God said: My spirit will not persist in men forever, because it is flesh; its days will be one hundred twenty years.
4 Moreover, there were giants on the earth in these days. And after the sons of God were engaged to the daughters of men, and they begat children, they were powerful to a generation of notorious men. 5 Moreover, God, seeing that there was much wickedness of men on earth and all thoughts of the heart were extended towards evil in every time, 6 he repented that he made man on earth. And he was touched with sorrow in his heart internally.
7 “I will eliminate man,” he said, “whom I created, from the face of the earth, from man up to the living things, from the creeping things to the flying things, indeed I repent that I created them.”
8 But Noë discovered friendship in the presence of God.
9 These are the generations of Noë: Noë, a man just and perfect was in his generation and walked with God. 10 And he begat three sons, Sem, Cham and Japeth.
11 And the world was corrupted in the presence of God and was filled with iniquity. 12 And when God saw the world to be corrupt (surely in all flesh had corrupted its way on earth), 13 he said to Noë: the end of all flesh comes before me; the earth is full of iniquity by their aspect, and I will destroy them with the earth. 14 Make for yourself an ark out of smoothed wood. You will make small dwellings in the art and you will besmear it with pitch internally and externally. 15 And thus you will make it: three-hundred cubits will be the length of the ark, fifty cubits its breadth and thirty cubits its height. 16 You will make windows in the ark, and in a cubit you will finish its top; moreover you will put a door of the ark from the sides downwards, rooms and a third floor you will make in it. 17 Behold, I will bring the waters of the flood over the earth so that I will destroy all flesh, in which the spirit of life is below heaven. Everything which is on earth is finished. 18 And I will place my pact with you; and you will enter your ark, and your sons, your wife, and the wives of your sons, with you. 19 And you will bring in pairs into the ark from all living things of all flesh, so that they may live with you of the male sex and female. 20 From the flying things according to their kind, and from draft animals in their own kind, and out of every creeping thing of the earth following its kind: two from every one will go in with you, so that they will be able to live. 21 You will therefore take with you from all food which they can eat and you will take it to you, and that will be to you, which is for them food.
22 Noë did therefore all things that God enjoined him.
Theological Notes
“The sons of God” form a mysterious presence in the opening verses of this chapter. They seem to have been responsible for God first deciding to limit the lifespan of humans to 120 years (a rough limit that still holds) and then for the wickedness of men in general that leads to God repenting of having creating humankind.
In some traditional Jewish glosses on these verses, “the sons of God” are interpreted as being fallen angels. Certainly, the phrase as it appears elsewhere would indicate that it refers to angels, and the context here doesn’t paint them in a very good light.