After Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden, they had many children. Their first son, Cain, became a farmer, and their second son, Abel, became a shepherd.

One day Cain and Abel made offerings to Jehovah. Do you know what an offering is? It is a special kind of gift. Jehovah was happy with Abel’s offering, but he was not happy with Cain’s. That made Cain very angry. Jehovah warned Cain that his anger could make him do something bad. But Cain did not listen.

Instead, Cain said to Abel: ‘Come over to the field with me.’ While they were alone in the field, Cain attacked his brother and killed him. What would Jehovah do about this? Jehovah punished Cain by sending him far away from his family. Cain would never be allowed to come back.

Is there a lesson here for us? We might start to feel angry if things don’t go the way we think they should. If we feel anger growing inside of us​—or if others warn us because they notice our anger—​we should quickly adjust and control our emotions before they control us.

Because Abel loved Jehovah and did what was right, Jehovah will always remember him. God will bring Abel back to life when He makes the earth a paradise.

In time, there came to be many people on the earth. Most of them were bad. Even some of the angels in heaven became bad. They left their home in heaven and came down to the earth. Do you know why they did that? So that they could take on human bodies and marry women.

The angels and the women had sons together. Those sons grew up to be very strong and became bullies. They hurt people. Jehovah could not let those things continue to happen. So he decided to destroy the bad people in a flood.

But there was a man who was different. He loved Jehovah. His name was Noah. He had a wife and three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and each of his sons had a wife. Jehovah told Noah to build a big ark so that he and his family could survive the Flood. An ark is a huge box that can float on water. Jehovah also told Noah to bring many animals inside the ark so that they could survive too.

Noah immediately started building the ark. It took Noah and his family about 50 years to build it. They built the ark exactly as Jehovah told them to. During that time, Noah warned the people about the Flood. But no one listened to him.

Finally, it was time to go into the ark. Let’s find out what happened next.