The Flood begins! Genesis XX!

Until the sons of God began to seek out wives
among the kindred of Cain, an accursed folk,
and they chose women there over the favor of the Maker,
the sons of man, women more wicked yet beautiful and fair.
Then spoke the Sovereign of the Skies, angry at mankind
and speaking these words: “They are not free from my punishment
in spirit, the progeny of Cain, but that kindred has sorely
enraged me. Now the children of Seth has renewed my anger
and take to themselves the women of my foes as mates.
The lovely women penetrate there troublesomely,
the beautiful faces of the ladies, and my eternal enemy
into the multitude of my people, when they were before
in my protection.” (1248-62)

After a count of a hundred and twenty winters
in this world was told vengeance troubled the doomed people,
when the Lord wished to set his punishment on the pledge-breakers
and strike the sinful of deeds into death, the kindred of giants,
unbeloved of God, the great evil-scathers, hateful to the Maker. (1263-69)

Then the Wielder of Victories saw for himself
what was coming of men’s evils upon the earth
and that they were reckless of their sins and evil.
He thought to be avenged upon that unlovely generation
of men, to seize mankind grimly and sorely
with stern powers. He awakened a corpse when he first
shaped Adam, the first of the tribes of men, the point of nobles.
God said that he wished to lay waste to all that were
upon the earth for the sins of men, to destroy every body
in whom the spirit of life covered in its embrace.
All that the Lord would kill in days to come
that were drawing near to the children of men. (1270-84)

Noah was good, dear to the Savior, quite blessed,
the son of Lamech, glory-fast and righteous.
The Lord knew that the courage of that nobleman
was strong within the thoughts of his breast.
Therefore the Lord said to him, holy in speech,
the Helm of All Beings, what he wished to do
to the guilty men. He saw that the earth was filled
with the unright, the broad plains of time,
burdened with their sins, stained with their corruption.
Then the Sovereign spoke, our Savior, and said to Noah: (1285-95)

“I wish to kill the people with a flood and every sort
of living creature brought forth and nourished upon the sea and air,
the cattle and the birds. You shall keep my compact
with your sons, when the dark waters, the black slaughter-streams
swallow the multitudes of the sinful harmers.
Begin to work upon a ship, a great sea-house.
Upon this ship you shall provide a refuge for many things,
and a proper place for all things according to their own stock.
Make decks in the bosom of this ship. You must make
this vessel fifty ell-measures wide, thirty high
and three hundred long and work the joints fast
against the waves. There this vessel shall be loaded
with the progeny of every sort of living thing,
into that wood-fastness the stock of the earth.
The Ark must be the greater.” (1296-1313)

Noah performed such as his Savior commanded.
he obeyed and hurriedly began to create that house,
that great sea-chest. He said to his kinsmen that
terrible things were coming to the people, a horrible punishment.
They believed little in these things!
Then the Pledge-fast Maker saw that after many winters
the greatest ocean-house towered ready, within and without
it was made fast with the best earthen pitch against the waters,
the vessel of Noah. It is special among its kind: it always
is the harder the more strongly that the stormy waters
beat upon it, the darkened sea-streams. (1314-26)