God observes that the earth is corrupted with violence and decides to destroy all life. But Noah "was a righteous man, blameless in his generation, [and] Noah walked with God," and God gives him instructions for the ark, into which he is told to bring "two of every sort [of animal]...male and female ... everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life," and their food. (Genesis 6 and 7).