Genesis 8

1 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.

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 The deep’s fountains and the sky’s windows were also stopped, and the rain from the sky was restrained.

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 waters continually receded from the earth. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters receded.

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

4 The ship rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on Ararat’s mountains.

(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 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.

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 At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made,

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

7 and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth.

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

8 He himself sent out a dove to see if the waters were abated from the surface of the ground,

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

9 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.

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 He waited yet another seven days; and again he sent the dove out of the ship.

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

11 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.

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 He waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; and she didn’t return to him any more.

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

13 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.

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 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.

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

15 God spoke to Noah, saying,

Then God said to Noah,

16 “Go out of the ship, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you.

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

17 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.”

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 Noah went out, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives with him.

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

19 Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatever moves on the earth, after their families, went out of the ship.

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 Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

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 Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma. Yahweh 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.

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 While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”

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