This is not merely a pattern modern readers have noticed. Later New Testament writers explicitly make the Flood an example of judgment. Second Peter 2:5 says God did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah. Second Peter 3:5–7 then compares the world destroyed by water with a future judgment still to come. A few verses later, Peter directs hope toward “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” The Flood therefore becomes an inspired precedent for thinking about final judgment and the world beyond it.

Jesus likewise appeals to the Flood in Matthew 24 and Luke 17. Ordinary life continued until judgment arrived. First Peter 3 recalls the eight people preserved through water and connects the pattern with baptism and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Across these passages, the Flood is remembered simultaneously as catastrophe and preservation.

The integrated story is: ordered creation → corruption → waters undo the inhabited world → a remnant is preserved → the earth will emerge again → the New Testament uses the Flood as a model of judgment and rescue → Peter carries the trajectory toward final judgment and new heavens and a new earth. This is one of the clearest places where Genesis becomes vocabulary for the Bible’s final horizon.