Genesis 7:4

For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. First it had been years of respite, but now the time has narrowed down to a few days, thus emphasizing once more the inevitable doom. The destruction was to be brought upon the earth by a flood inaugurated by a steady rain of forty days and forty nights, and it was to include all animate creation, everything that had its own separate existence, all of which was to be blotted out from the face of the earth.