Genesis 8
1 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.
God remembered Noah, all the animals, and all the livestock that were with him in the ship; and God made a wind to pass over the earth. The waters subsided.
2 The subterranean waters were closed off, and the heavy rainfall was stopped.
The deep’s fountains and the sky’s windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained.
3 The floodwaters steadily receded from the earth. They had gone down so much that by 150 days after the flood began
The waters continually receded from the earth. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters receded.
4 the ark grounded on the mountains of Ararat. This happened on the seventeenth day of the seventh month.
The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat’s mountains.
5 The waters continued to drop so that by the first day of the tenth month the tops of mountains could be seen.
The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.
6 Forty days later Noah opened the window he'd made in the ark,
At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made,
7 and sent a raven out. It flew back and forth until the water on the earth had dried up.
and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth.
8 Then he sent a dove out to see if the waters had gone down enough to expose dry ground.
He himself sent out a dove to see if the waters were abated from the surface of the ground,
9 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.
but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned into the ship to him, for the waters were on the surface of the whole earth. He put out his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ship.
10 He waited another seven days and sent the dove out from the ark again.
He waited yet another seven days; and again he sent the dove out of the ship.
11 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.
The dove came back to him at evening and, behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth.
12 Again he waited another seven days and sent the dove out again, but this time it didn't return to him.
He waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; and she didn’t return to him any more.
13 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.
In the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dry.
14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was dry.
In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
15 Then God told Noah,
God spoke to Noah, saying,
16 “Leave the ark, you and your wife, your sons and their wives.
“Go out of the ship, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you.
17 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.”
Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth.”
18 So Noah and his wife, his sons and their wives, left the ark.
Noah went out, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives with him.
19 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.
Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatever moves on the earth, after their families, went out of the ship.
20 Noah built an altar, and sacrificed some of the clean animals and birds as a burnt offering.
Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21 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.
The LORD smelled the pleasant aroma. The LORD said in his heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike every living thing, as I have done.
22 As long as the earth exists, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never come to an end.”
While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”
A Dove is Sent Forth from the Ark
