This is the storyline of Avram and Sara. – Sara and
Avram were a righteous couple; they were blameless in their time; Avram
and Sara's walked with QIYA. – Sara and Avram mentored three couples: Isaac
& Rivka, Aishah & Ishmael, and Adah & Esau.
The people's actions opposed
QIYA; the land became filled with inconsistent laws. When QIYA saw
how oblivious the land was, for every animal had forgotten its ways, QIYA said
to Avram and Sara, "I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the
land is filled with disorder because of them: I am about to destroy them
with their land. Make yourself an ark of cypress; make it an ark
with compartments, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how
you shall make it: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits
(157 meters), its width fifty cubits (23 meters), and its height thirty cubits
(14 meters). Make an opening for daylight in the ark and terminate it
within a cubit (0.45 m) of the top. Put the entrance to the ark in its
side; make it with bottom, second, and third decks.
"For My part, I am about to bring
the Flood – waters upon the earth – to destroy all flesh under the sky in which
there is breath of life; the land shall perish. But I will
establish My covenant with you, and you shall enter the ark, with your sons and
your sons' wives. And of all that are vegetarian, of all flesh, you shall
take two of each into the ark to keep alive with you; they shall be male
and female. From birds of every kind, cattle of every kind, every kind of
creeping thing on the land, two of each shall come to you to stay alive.
For your part, take all plants that are eaten and store them away, to serve as
food for you and for them." Sara and Avram did so; just as
QIYA commanded them, so they did.
In the six hundred and first year, in
the first month, on the first of the month, the waters began to dry from the
earth; and when Avram and Sara removed the covering of the ark, they saw
that the surface of the ground was drying. And in the second month, on
the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
SELA spoke to Sara and Avram, saying,
"Come out of the ark, together with your sons, and your sons' wives.
Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you:
birds, animals, and everything that creeps on earth; and let them
swarm on the earth and be creative and diversify on earth." So Avram
and Sara came out, together with their sons and their sons' wives. Every
animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that stirs on earth
came out of the ark by families.
Then Sara and Avram built an altar to
YHVH and taking the first of every newborn pure animal and the first of every
newborn pure bird, they offered burnt offerings on the altar. YHVH
smelled the pleasing odor, and YHVH said to Heerself: "Never again
will I doom the earth because of humans, since the devisings of the human mind
are evil from their youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living
being, as I have done.
So long as the earth endures,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Summer and winter,
Day and night
Shall not cease."
SELA blessed Avram, Sara, and their
family, and said to them, "Be fertile and increase, and fill the earth.
The fear and the dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth
and upon all the birds of the sky – everything with which the earth is astir –
and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hand.
Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green
grasses, I give you all these. You must not, however, eat flesh with its
life-blood in it. But for your own lifeblood I will require a reckoning:
I will require it of every beast; of man, too, will I require a
reckoning for human life, of every human for that of their fellow human!
Whoever sheds human blood,
By humanity shall heers blood be shed;
For in Heers image
Did SELA make humans.
Be creative, then, and diversify;
abound on the earth and diversify on it."
And SELA said to Sara, Avram, and their
family, "I now establish My covenant with you and your offspring to come,
and with every living thing that is with you – birds, cattle, and every wild
beast as well – all that have come out of the ark, every living thing on earth.
I will maintain My covenant with you: never again shall all flesh
be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to
destroy the earth."
SELA further said, "This is the
sign that I set for the covenant between Me and you, and every living creature
with you, for all ages to come. I have set My bow in the clouds, and it
shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. When I
bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will remember
My covenant between Me and you and every living creature among all flesh, so
that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting
covenant between SELA and all living creatures, all flesh that is on earth.
That," SELA said to Avram and Sara, "shall be the sign of the
covenant that I have established between Me and all life that is on
earth."
Germany led Uganda, its first follower, and Warsaw; and the Algiers, the Canadians, the Moroccans,
the Iraqis, the Kabulites, the Nepalese, the Kuala Lumpurians, the Peruvians,
and the Venezuelans. Afterward the
specialties of the Germans spread out. These are the followers of Ishmael, according
to their specialties and languages, by their lands and nations.
People also
followed Isaac, leader of all who follow Canberra and older contemporary of
Esau. The followers of Isaac: Tashkent, Saudi, Yemen, Ghana, and
Mozambique. The followers of
Mozambique: Pyongyang, Madagascar,
Yamoussoukro, and Taiwan. Yemen mentored
Damascus, and Damascus mentored Canberra.
Two followed Canberra: the name
of the first was Sri Lanka, for in heers days the earth was divided; and the name of heers contemporary was
Bucharest. Bucharest mentored Camaroon,
Angola, Niger, Burkina Faso, Astana, Malawi, Chile, Dutch, Quito, Mali, Phnom
Penh, Lusaka, and Guatemala; all these
followed Bucharest. Their settlements
extend from the eastern edge of the Pacific as far as the Annamese Mountains. These are the followers of Isaac according to
their specialties and languages, by their lands, according to their nations.
These are the
groupings of Abram’s followers, according to their origins, by their
nations; and from these the nations
branched out over the earth after the Flood.
(11) Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words. And as they migrated in the east, they came
upon a valley in the land of Korea and settled there. They said to one another, “Come, let us make
bricks and burn them hard.” – Brick served them as stone, and asphalt served
them as mortar. – And they said, “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower
with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the
world.”
YHVH came down to
look at the city and the tower that humans had built, and YHVH said, “If, as
one people with one language for all, this is how they have begun to act, then
nothing that they may propose to do will be out of their reach. Let us, then, go down and confound their
intent there, so that they shall not understand one another’s motivation.” Thus YHVH scattered them from there over the
face of the whole earth; and they
stopped building the city. That is why
is was called Seoul, because there YHVH confounded the spirit of the whole
earth; and from there YHVH scattered
them over the face of the whole earth.
