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.
But God remembered Noah and all the animals and livestock that were with him in the ark. And God sent a wind over the earth, and the waters began to subside.
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.
The springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained.
3 The water on the earth gradually receded. 150 days after the flood began,
The waters receded steadily from the earth, and after 150 days the waters had gone down.
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.
On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
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.
And the waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the 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.
After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark
7 The raven flew back and forth [to and from the boat] until the water was completely gone.
and sent out a raven. It kept flying back and forth until the waters had dried up from the earth.
8 Then Noah sent out a dove to find out if the water had all receded on the ground.
Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of 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.
But the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned to him in the ark, because the waters were still covering the surface of all the earth. So he reached out his hand and brought her back inside the ark.
10 Noah waited seven more days. Then he sent the dove out of the boat again.
Noah waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark.
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.
And behold, the dove returned to him in the evening with a freshly plucked olive leaf in her beak. So Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.
12 Noah waited seven more days. Then he sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
And Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove again, but this time she 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.
In Noah’s six hundred and first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters had dried up from the earth. So Noah removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.
14 By the 27th day of the next month, the ground was completely dry.
By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was fully dry.
15 Then God said to Noah,
Then God said to Noah,
16 “Leave the boat, along with your wife and your sons and their wives.
“Come out of the ark, you and your wife, along with 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.”
Bring out all the living creatures that are with you—birds, livestock, and everything that crawls upon the ground—so that they can spread out over the earth and be fruitful and multiply upon it.”
18 So Noah left the boat, along with his wife and his sons and their wives.
So Noah came out, along with his sons and his wife and his sons’ 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.
Every living creature, every creeping thing, and every bird—everything that moves upon the earth—came out of the ark, kind by kind.
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.
Then Noah built an altar to the LORD. And taking from every kind of clean animal and clean bird, he offered burnt offerings 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.
When the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, He said in His heart, “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from his youth. And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.
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.”
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.”
A Dove is Sent Forth from the Ark
