What does the Book of Enoch say about the Flood?

The Book of Enoch presents the Flood as the decisive divine judgment that purges the earth of cosmic corruption unleashed by rebellious angels and their offspring. A group of Watchers led by Semjaza and Azazel descend on Mount Hermon, take human wives, and teach forbidden arts of metallurgy, cosmetics, and warfare, producing the violent Nephilim whose appetites fill the world with bloodshed (1 Enoch 6-7). This breach of heavenly and earthly boundaries prompts the archangels to seek judgment, and chapters 10-11 record the explicit decree to bind the fallen angels, destroy the giants, and spare only Noah so that seed may be preserved for a renewed creation (1 Enoch 10-11).

Enoch himself receives a visionary warning of the coming waters in chapters 65-67, where he is shown the earth convulsed by the consequences of angelic transgression and learns that Noah alone will be delivered through an ark built under divine guidance (1 Enoch 65-67). The same tradition later recounts the miraculous birth of Noah in an appendix, underscoring his unique role as the righteous remnant (1 Enoch 106). Across these passages the Flood appears not as arbitrary punishment but as the necessary restoration of order after the Watchers’ rebellion had threatened the entire created world.