The Great Flood is one of the most significant events recorded in the Bible, symbolizing both God’s judgment and His mercy. This comprehensive guide presents 60 Bible verses about the flood, providing a deep dive into this pivotal moment in biblical history. From the account of Noah building the ark to God’s covenant after the waters receded, these scriptures offer valuable insights into faith, obedience, and divine providence.
The Prelude to the Flood: God’s Decision
- Genesis 6:5-6 – “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.”
- Genesis 6:7 – “So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.'”
- Genesis 6:11-12 – “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.”
- Genesis 6:13 – “So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.'”
- 2 Peter 2:5 – “If he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;”
- 1 Peter 3:20 – “To those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,”

God’s Instructions to Noah
- Genesis 6:14 – “So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.”
- Genesis 6:15-16 – “This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.”
- Genesis 6:18 – “But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.”
- Genesis 6:19-20 – “You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.”
Noah’s Obedience and Preparation
- Genesis 6:22 – “Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”
- Genesis 7:1 – “The Lord then said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.'”
- Genesis 7:2-3 – “Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.”
- Genesis 7:5 – “And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.”
- Hebrews 11:7 – “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.”
The Flood Begins
- Genesis 7:6 – “Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.”
- Genesis 7:7-9 – “And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.”
- Genesis 7:10 – “And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.”
- Genesis 7:11 – “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.”
- Genesis 7:12 – “And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.”
The Extent and Impact of the Flood
- Genesis 7:17-18 – “For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water.”
- Genesis 7:19-20 – “They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.”
- Genesis 7:21-22 – “Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.”
- Genesis 7:23 – “Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.”
- Genesis 7:24 – “The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.”

God Remembers Noah
- Genesis 8:1 – “But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.”
- Genesis 8:2-3 – “Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down,”
- Genesis 8:4 – “and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.”
- Genesis 8:5 – “The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.”
- Genesis 8:6-7 – “After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth.”
The End of the Flood
- Genesis 8:8-9 – “Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.”
- Genesis 8:11 – “When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.”
- Genesis 8:13-14 – “By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.”
- Genesis 8:15-16 – “Then God said to Noah, ‘Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.'”
- Genesis 8:17 – “Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”
God’s Covenant After the Flood
- Genesis 8:20-21 – “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.'”
- Genesis 9:1 – “Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.'”
- Genesis 9:11 – “I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
- Genesis 9:12-13 – “And God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.'”
- Genesis 9:15 – “I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.”
Lessons and Reflections on the Flood
- Matthew 24:37-39 – “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”
- Luke 17:26-27 – “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.”
- 2 Peter 3:5-6 – “But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.”
- Psalm 93:3-4 – “The seas have lifted up, Lord, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas have lifted up their pounding waves. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea—the Lord on high is mighty.”
This verse relates to the power of water and God’s might over it, which is thematically connected to the flood narrative. - Psalm 29:10 – “The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord is enthroned as King forever.”
The Flood as a Symbol of Judgment and Mercy
- Isaiah 54:8-9 – “‘In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,’ says the Lord your Redeemer. ‘To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again.'”
- Jude 1:14-15 – “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: ‘See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.'”
- Ezekiel 14:14 – “Even if these three men—Noah, Daniel and Job—were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
- Matthew 24:38-39 – “For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”
- 2 Peter 3:6-7 – “By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
God’s Promise and the Rainbow
- Genesis 9:16 – “Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
- Ezekiel 1:28 – “Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.”
- Revelation 4:3 – “And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne.”
- Genesis 9:17 – “So God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.'”
- Isaiah 54:10 – “‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”

The Flood in Historical and Cultural Context
- Job 22:15-16 – “Will you keep to the old path that the wicked have trod? They were carried off before their time, their foundations washed away by a flood.”
- Psalm 104:6-9 – “You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth.”
- Isaiah 28:2 – “See, the Lord has one who is powerful and strong. Like a hailstorm and a destructive wind, like a driving rain and a flooding downpour, he will throw it forcefully to the ground.”
- Amos 9:6 – “He builds his lofty palace in the heavens and sets its foundation on the earth; he calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land— the Lord is his name.”
- Nahum 1:8 – “But with an overwhelming flood he will make an end of Nineveh; he will pursue his foes into darkness.”
These 60 Bible verses about the flood provide a comprehensive overview of this pivotal event in biblical history. From God’s decision to send the flood to His covenant with Noah afterward, these scriptures offer profound insights into divine judgment, mercy, and the enduring promise of God’s faithfulness. The story of the flood serves as a powerful reminder of the consequences of sin, the importance of obedience, and the hope found in God’s redemptive plan for humanity.
As we reflect on these verses, we are challenged to consider our own relationship with God and our responsibility to live righteously. The flood narrative continues to resonate across generations, offering timeless lessons about faith, obedience, and the unwavering love of our Creator. May these Bible verses about the flood inspire us to deepen our understanding of God’s character and His ongoing work in the world today.