Noah and the Ark

Noah was a man who did what was right and obeyed God. He had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth.


However everyone else was disobeying God. People were treating each other very badly.


God saw that the people He had created had become very wicked and violent.


God told Noah He was going to put an end to this wickedness by sending a flood to cover the earth. But Noah and his family would be spared.


Noah was given instructions to build a big ark out of wood and cover it in waterproof pitch. It was to be 450ft (135 m) long, 75ft (23m) wide and 45ft (14m) high. It would have three decks divided into rooms and a roof with a gap underneath for air to get in. It would have one door on the side.


At once, Noah and his sons started to build the huge box shaped boat.


The wicked people around wondered what Noah and his sons were doing.


When the ark was ready, God told Noah the flood would be coming in 7 days’ time. Noah, his three sons and their wives were told to take their possessions aboard. They stored food for the animals coming aboard too.


Seven pairs of each clean animal and bird, one male the other female, were put into the ark. Two of every unclean animal were also taken on board. (Unclean animals were those such as lizards, moles, pigs, owls, mice, ferrets and ravens.


God then closed the door of the ark and the rain began to fall. For 40 days it rained heavily; rivers burst their banks, and flood waters got higher and higher.


As the waters rose, the ark began to float.


The waters kept rising until they covered all the high mountains. Every living creature on land outside the ark was wiped out.


The water flooded the earth for 150 days but those on board the ark were kept safe.


As the flood water went down the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.


After 40 days Noah sent out a raven but it found nowhere to land.


Then he sent out a dove. It flew around looking for land.


But it could find nowhere to perch and returned to the ark. Noah reached out his hand and brought it back into the ark.


Seven days later he sent out the dove again.


Later that evening it returned with a freshly plucked leaf. Noah knew the water was receding.


A week later he sent out the dove a third time but it did not return. Noah knew that the dove had found land.


Noah removed the roof of the ark and saw the land was drying out. Two months later the land was dry enough for Noah, his family and the animals to leave the ark.


Noah built an altar to the Lord and made sacrifices to God.


God was pleased with the offering and promised never again to destroy all living creatures. ‘As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.’


God put a rainbow in the sky. God then told Noah, ‘This rainbow is the sign of my promise never to flood the whole earth again.’

Cain and Abel

Adam and Eve had a baby boy who they named Cain. Later, Eve gave birth to another son who was named Abel.


When they grew up, Cain cultivated the ground while Abel became a shepherd.


When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift, the best of the firstborn lambs from his flock.


The Lord accepted the sacrifice Abel gave, but He did not accept the gift Cain gave. This made Cain very angry and dejected.


‘Why are you so angry?’ the Lord asked Cain. ‘You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.’


One day Cain suggested to his brother, ‘Let’s go out into the fields.’


While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother, Abel, and killed him


Afterward the Lord asked Cain, ‘Where is your brother? Where is Abel?’


‘I don’t know,’ Cain responded. ‘Am I my brother’s guardian?’ ‘What have you done?’ God replied. ‘Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground! Now you are cursed and banished. The ground will no longer yield good crops for you, no matter how hard you work! From now on you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth.’


‘My punishment is too great to bear!’ Cain uttered. ‘You have banished me and made me a homeless wanderer. Anyone who finds me will kill me!’ ‘No,’ the Lord replied. ‘If anyone murders you their punishment will be seven times greater.’


The Lord put a mark on Cain to warn anyone who might try to kill him. So Cain left the Lord’s presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Adam and Eve

In the middle of the garden of Eden were two special trees. One was the Tree of Life and the other was the tree giving knowledge of good and evil. God told Adam he could eat the fruit of any tree but he must not eat the fruit from the tree giving knowledge of good and evil. To do so would be to disobey and bring death.


Now the serpent (Satan) was more crafty than any living creature. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’


The woman replied, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God told us not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or touch it, or we will die.’


‘You will not die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’


The woman saw that the fruit of the tree looked good for eating. She also desired to know about good and evil and gain wisdom so she took some of the forbidden fruit and ate it. She gave some to Adam, who was with her, and he ate it too.


Immediately they realised they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.


Then the two of them heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. They hid from God among the trees. God called to Adam, ‘Where are you?’


Adam answered, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was so afraid because I was naked, that I hid.’ God replied, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?’ Adam answered, ‘The woman you put here with me gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’


Then God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ So God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all other animals. You will crawl on your belly in the dust as long as you live. There will be hostility between you and the woman and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.’


Then God said to the woman, ‘I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. You will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.’


Then God addressed Adam. ‘Since you listened to your wife and disobeyed, the ground is cursed. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you die. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.’


Then the Adam named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live. And the Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife. God said, ‘Humans have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the Tree of Life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!’ So God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and He sent Adam out to cultivate the ground. Mighty cherubim angels were posted to stop Adam and Eve returning to the Garden of Eden. And He placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Pyre | English Vocabulary | Learn a New Word Everyday

A pile of flammable materials, often used for burning bodies


Over the pyre of wood in the backyard, we roasted marshmallows and hot dogs.


The tribesmen were burned on a pyre so the evil spirits could not capture their bodies.


When my wife left me for her boss, I burned all her clothes in a pyre in the front yard.


During the search of the pyre in the killer’s yard, the police found scorched human bones.

Adam & the Garden of Eden

This is the story about the creation of the sky and the earth. This is what happened when the Lord God made the earth and the sky. This was before there were plants on the earth. Nothing was growing in the fields because the Lord God had not yet made it rain on the earth, and there was no one to care for the plants.


So water came up from the earth and spread over the ground.


Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and made a man.


He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nose, and the man became a living thing.


Then the Lord God planted a garden in the East, in a place named Eden.


He put the man he made in that garden. Then the Lord God caused all the beautiful trees that were good for food to grow in the garden.


In the middle of the garden, he put the tree of life and the tree that gives knowledge about good and evil.


A river flowed from Eden and watered the garden. The river then separated and became four smaller rivers.


The Lord God put the man in the Garden of Eden to work the soil and take care of the garden.


The Lord God gave him this command: “You may eat from any tree in the garden. But you must not eat from the tree that gives knowledge about good and evil. If you eat fruit from that tree, on that day you will certainly die!”


The Lord God used dust from the ground and made every animal in the fields and every bird in the air. He brought all these animals to the man, and the man gave them all a name.


The man gave names to all the tame animals, to all the birds in the air, and to all the wild animals. He saw many animals and birds, but he could not find a companion that was right for him. So the Lord God caused the man to sleep very deeply. While he was asleep, God took one of the ribs from the man’s body. Then he closed the man’s skin where the rib had been.


The Lord God used the rib from the man to make a woman. Then he brought the woman to the man. And the man said,

“Finally! One like me,
with bones from my bones
and a body from my body.
She was taken out of a man,
so I will call her ‘woman.’”


That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife. In this way two people become one.