創世記 8
1 上帝記念挪亞和挪亞方舟裏的一切走獸牲畜。上帝叫風吹地，水勢漸落。
But God hadn't forgotten about Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the ark. God sent a wind to blow over the earth, and the floodwaters started to drop.
2 淵源和天上的窗戶都閉塞了，天上的大雨也止住了。
The subterranean waters were closed off, and the heavy rainfall was stopped.
3 水從地上漸退。過了一百五十天，水就漸消。
The floodwaters steadily receded from the earth. They had gone down so much that by 150 days after the flood began
4 七月十七日，方舟停在亞拉臘山上。
the ark grounded on the mountains of Ararat. This happened on the seventeenth day of the seventh month.
5 水又漸消，到十月初一日，山頂都現出來了。
The waters continued to drop so that by the first day of the tenth month the tops of mountains could be seen.
6 過了四十天，挪亞開了方舟的窗戶，
Forty days later Noah opened the window he'd made in the ark,
7 放出一隻烏鴉去；那烏鴉飛來飛去，直到地上的水都乾了。
and sent a raven out. It flew back and forth until the water on the earth had dried up.
8 他又放出一隻鴿子去，要看看水從地上退了沒有。
Then he sent a dove out to see if the waters had gone down enough to expose dry ground.
9 但遍地上都是水，鴿子找不着落腳之地，就回到方舟挪亞那裏，挪亞伸手把鴿子接進方舟來。
But the dove couldn't find anywhere to land. So it came back to Noah in the ark because water was still covering the whole earth. He reached out his hand, picked up the dove, and took it back into the ark with him.
10 他又等了七天，再把鴿子從方舟放出去。
He waited another seven days and sent the dove out from the ark again.
11 到了晚上，鴿子回到他那裏，嘴裏叼着一個新擰下來的橄欖葉子，挪亞就知道地上的水退了。
When it came back to him in the evening it had a freshly-picked olive leaf in its beak, so Noah knew the floodwaters were mainly gone from the earth.
12 他又等了七天，放出鴿子去，鴿子就不再回來了。
Again he waited another seven days and sent the dove out again, but this time it didn't return to him.
13 到挪亞六百零一歲，正月初一日，地上的水都乾了。挪亞撤去方舟的蓋觀看，便見地面上乾了。
By now Noah was 601, and by the first day of the first month, the floodwaters on the earth were gone. Noah pulled back the ark's covering and saw that the ground was drying out.
14 到了二月二十七日，地就都乾了。
By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was dry.
15 上帝對挪亞說：
Then God told Noah,
16 「你和你的妻子、兒子、兒婦都可以出方舟。
“Leave the ark, you and your wife, your sons and their wives.
17 在你那裏凡有血肉的活物，就是飛鳥、牲畜，和一切爬在地上的昆蟲，都要帶出來，叫牠在地上多多滋生，大大興旺。」
Let all the animals go—the birds, the wild animals, the creatures that run along the ground—so that they can breed and increase their numbers on the earth.”
18 於是挪亞和他的妻子、兒子、兒婦都出來了。
So Noah and his wife, his sons and their wives, left the ark.
19 一切走獸、昆蟲、飛鳥，和地上所有的動物，各從其類，也都出了方舟。
All the animals, all the creatures that run along the ground, all the birds—everything that lives on land—also left, each kind leaving together.
20 挪亞為耶和華築了一座壇，拿各類潔淨的牲畜、飛鳥獻在壇上為燔祭。
Noah built an altar, and sacrificed some of the clean animals and birds as a burnt offering.
21 耶和華聞那馨香之氣，就心裏說：「我不再因人的緣故咒詛地（人從小時心裏懷着惡念），也不再按着我才行的滅各種的活物了。
The Lord accepted the sacrifice, and said to himself, “I won't ever again curse the ground because of human beings, even though every single thought in their minds is evil from childhood. I won't ever destroy all life again as I have just done.
22 地還存留的時候，稼穡、寒暑、冬夏、晝夜就永不停息了。」
As long as the earth exists, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never come to an end.”
A Dove is Sent Forth from the Ark
