“This answer shalt thou say to them:
Because Bel hateth me
No longer will I live in your city, nor lay my head on Bel’s earth.
To the deep will I go down and live with Ea, my lord.
He will then cause it to rain upon ye abundantly.
A large number of birds, a crowd of fishes,
A quantity of animals, abundant harvest.…
The lines here are too mutilated to make much meaning. According to some interpretations Sit-napishtim assures his fellow-citizens of coming prosperity so that they have no misgivings as to his leaving them; others, on the contrary, indicate that Sit-napishtim made no secret of the coming deluge. Sit-napishtim then relates how he built the ship, gives its dimensions, and tells what he put into it. He continues (Jeremias’[n] translation):
“I brought up into the ship my whole family, and my dependants,
Cattle of the field, beasts of the field, artisans all together I brought them up.