in whom the first age was ended. The seventy interpreters say that this
first age dured two thousand two hundred and forty-four years. S. Jerome
saith not fully two thousand, and Methodius full two thousand, etc.

Noah then was a man perfect and righteous and kept God's commandment.
And when he was five hundred years old, he gat Shem, Ham, and Japhet.
This time men began to multiply on the earth, and the children of God,
that is to say of Seth, as religious, saw the daughters of men, that is
to say of Cain, and took them to their wives. This time was so much sin
on the earth, wherefore God was displeased and determined in his
prescience to destroy man that he had made, and said: I shall put man
away that I have made, and my spirit shall not abide in man for ever,
for he is flesh. As who said, I shall not punish man perpetually as I
do the devil, for man is frail, and yet ere I shall destroy him I shall
give him space and time of repentance and to amend him, if he will. The
time of repentance shall be one hundred and twenty years. Then Noah,
righteous and perfect, walked with God, that is in his laws, and the
earth was corrupt by sin and filled.

When God saw the earth to be corrupt, and that every man was corrupt by
sin upon the earth, he said to Noah: The end of all people is come
tofore me except them that shall be saved, and the earth is replenished
with their wickedness. I shall destroy them with the earth, id est [that
is], with the fertility of the earth. Make to thee an ark of tree, hewn,
polished, and squared. And make there divers places, and lime it with
clay and pitch within and without, that is to wit with glue which is so
fervent, that the timber may not be loosed. And thou shalt make it three
hundred cubits of length, fifty in breadth, and thirty of height. And
make therein divers distinctions of places and chambers and of
wardrobes. And the ark had a door for to enter in and come out, and a