Genesis 8

1 But God (did not forget/thought) about Noah and all the wild animals and all the kinds of livestock that were with him in the boat. So one day God sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the wind caused the water [to begin] to recede.

2 God caused the water that was under the earth to stop bursting forth, and he caused the floodgates of water from the sky to close so that it stopped raining.

3 The water on the earth gradually receded. 150 days after the flood began,

4 (on the 17th day of the seventh month [of that year/late in March]), the boat came to rest on one of the mountains in the Ararat region.

5 The water continued to recede until, on the first day of the tenth month [of that year], the tops of other mountains became visible.

6 40 days later, Noah opened the window that he had made in the side of the boat, and sent out a raven.

7 The raven flew back and forth [to and from the boat] until the water was completely gone.

8 Then Noah sent out a dove to find out if the water had all receded on the ground.

9 But the dove did not find any place to perch, so it flew back to Noah in the boat, because there was still water all over the surface of the earth. So Noah reached out his hand and took the dove back inside the boat.

10 Noah waited seven more days. Then he sent the dove out of the boat again.

11 This time the dove returned to him in the evening and, [surprisingly], in its beak there was a leaf from an olive tree that the dove had just plucked. Then Noah knew that the water had truly receded from the surface of the ground.

12 Noah waited seven more days. Then he sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

13 Noah was now 601 years old. By the first day of the first month [of the Jewish year], the water had completely drained away from the ground. Noah removed the covering on top of the ark, and he was surprised to see that the surface of the ground was drying.

14 By the 27th day of the next month, the ground was completely dry.

15 Then God said to Noah,

16 “Leave the boat, along with your wife and your sons and their wives.

17 Bring out with you all the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that scurry across the ground, in order that they can spread all over the earth and become very numerous.”

18 So Noah left the boat, along with his wife and his sons and their wives.

19 And every kind of creature, including all those that scurry across the ground, all the birds, every creature that moves on the earth, left the boat. They left the boat in groups of their own species.

20 Then Noah built a (stone altar/place for offering sacrifices) to Yahweh. Then he took some of the animals that Yahweh had said were acceptable as sacrifices and killed them. Then he burned them whole on the altar.

21 When Yahweh smelled the pleasant odor, he was pleased with the sacrifice. Then he said to himself, “I will never again devastate everything on the earth because of the sinful things people do. Even though everything that people think is evil from the time they are young, I will not destroy all the living creatures again, as I did this time.

22 As long as the earth exists, each year there will be seasons for planting seeds and seasons for harvesting crops. Each year there will be times when it is cold and times when it is hot, summer and winter (OR, rainy season and dry season). Each day there will be daytime and nighttime.”

A Dove is Sent Forth from the Ark